Broward Palm Beach News Blog

Flickr User: mspdigiparties

Tom Petters with his daughter Jennifer

Hey, look another house just got sold on Ponzi Island! Sorry, I mean Palm Beach. Easy mistake, since alleged Ponzi schemer Tom Petters is a neighbor of convicted $67 billion Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff, among other Island residents linked to financial fraud.

Just a part-time South Florida resident, Petters Group Worldwide is based in suburban Minneapolis. Still, it seems a function of how fraud stories have saturated South Florida media that Petters' case has received such little attention here. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune devoted a whole portion of its website, treating Petters as a "special project," whereas his alleged $3.5 billion fraud apparently hasn't impressed the Palm Beach Post enough to warrant an article.

Here's a short article on Petters' case from the Wall Street Journal. I suppose the fact that Petters had houses in five different states made it hard for him to develop much of a profile in South Florida. His six-bedroom house sold for just under $10 million. Not sure whether that was the house where his daughter Jennifer -- who is said to live in Florida -- was staying.

The Madoffs' Palm Beach home has been signed over to the government and whatever price it fetches will go toward paying pennies on the dollar for Madoff investors.