Madoff scandal personal for Destin developer

Developer Thomas Becnel was taking an early morning walk when he got the call about Bernie Madoff from his money manager.

“He was very upset,” Becnel said. “I thought his partner died.”

Instead his financier told him how Madoff had bilked Becnel as well as untold thousands.

“Well at least nobody died, so I went to work,” Becnel said.

As the nation still reels from the scope of what many are calling the largest Ponzi scheme in history, Becnel joins the ranks of more than 13,000 others on Madoff’s client list, which includes big names like actors John Malkovich, Kevin Bacon and Dodgers great Sandy Koufax. All told, investors may have lost more than $50 billion.

For his part, Becnel is nonchalant about his personal losses.

“Eight years ago we invested some money with him and it’s gone now, and that’s the end of the story,” Becnel said.

The developer of Destin landmarks like Silver Shells and the Palms never met the now infamous New York trader but spoke to him over the phone.

“A friend of mine from Aspen recommended him and had been with him three years,” Becnel said. “I talked to Bernie, did due diligence, looked at his credentials, had a banker look at him and the outcome was the same ... this guy looks like he is just a winner.”

The entry on Madoff’s client list also includes Rodney Olsen, the president/broker of Compass Resorts. Olsen told The Log his name appeared on the list because he was Becnel’s financial officer at the time. He said since moving on he has been “out of the loop.”

Becnel said his investments in Madoff’s firm were part of an overall diversified strategy. He said in boom times he saw anywhere from 7 to 11 percent gains each year in Madoff’s fund, which was good but not great.

“The truth of the matter is it is very difficult to protect yourself from someone willing to forfeit their freedom in order to defraud you,” he said. “The real culprit is the SEC that let him get away with it for 13 or 14 years.”

This isn’t the first time someone chose to “forfeit their freedom” to defraud Becnel.

For most of 2004, land speculator Stephen Alford was marketing two of the more valuable Air Force parcels on Okaloosa Island to investors Richard Massey and Thomas Becnel.

After the deal fell through, Massey, who had invested millions of dollars, went to the FBI.

Federal authorities arrested Alford and his attorney David Fleet in July 2005 on charges they’d defrauded Massey, a wealthy condominium owner, out of more than $7 million and cheated Becnel out of $5 million.

Becnel said it was “not appropriate to disclose” how much he lost to Madoff but said that it was “not enough to change my lifestyle or keep me up at night.”

He did say, however, that the losses were categorized as theft, which means the investment is covered by insurance. He said he expects to get 35 percent of his total investment back plus $1 million from insurance.

And as lawsuits pile up against Madoff, Becnel is filing the appropriate claims in a bid to recoup his losses. But he has no expectation that he’ll ever see a dime from Madoff — and if he does, “it’s lagniappe,” Becnel says.

“When you are in business long enough you are gonna win some and lose some,” he said. “When you lose ’em, you gotta go on.”