David and his wife (Courtesy New York Magazine)

– Rough patch for captain of industry George David, whose UTC owns Palm Beach County’s second largest employer, Pratt & Whitney. The 67-year-old is going through a nasty divorce in Connecticut. The wife, Marie Douglas-David, wants $100 million to go away. And the dirty laundry aired out in court Tuesday, according to the Hartford Courant, included how David spent one weekend on the French Riviera with his mistress, a New York financial advisor, and the next in Paris with his wife. David averted disaster in Paris when, walking with his “ole’ lady”, he saw another couple who’d met him and his mistress on the Riviera. David made sure to steer is wife out-of-sight. The wife’s attorneys accuse David of going on a shopping spree with the mistress at the time he was trying to patch things up with the wife. The spree included $10,000 worth of Manolo Blahnik shoes and a $15,000-fur coat. Meanwhile, 11,600 of UTC’s employees could be shown the door this year.

— Palm Beach Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff has just arrived at the Butner Federal Correctional Complex in the Raleigh-Durham, N.C., area. Madoff, 71, is scheduled to remain at the low to medium security facility until 2139, according to Bureau of Prisons records. The complex also includes a hospital.

McCarty

– Speaking of federal prison, the supporters of disgraced former Palm Beach County Commish Mary McCarty received this e-mail from her family after she checked into her new digs for the next five years, the Federal Prison Camp Bryan, a women’s camp in Texas. Corruption was her crime. Three and a half years the sentence. The e-mail: “Mary landed in Bryan Texas over the weekend.  Any cards or letters should be sent to the following address: Mary Ballard McCarty, Register #: 73341-004, FPC Bryan, PO Box 2149, Bryan, TX 77805. Should you have any questions regarding visitation, commissary funds, sending magazines/books, please don’t hesitate to contact us.”

Commissary funds? Or sure, let me send her five bucks right now!

Eleanor Squillari (Courtesy Vanity Fair)

Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff spent some of the billions he stole from clients in South Florida and elsewhere on sexy massages and escorts, according to a story in the upcoming Vanity Fair.

Eleanor Squillari, 59, Madoff’s secretary for more than 20 years, co-authored a story in the June issue in which she reveals the sleazier side of the part-time Palm Beacher.

Among other revelations: Madoff’s wife, Ruth, tried to exude perfection for her man and watched him like a hawk when beautiful women were around; he kept an address book with the names of a dozen massage parlors; Squillari caught him perusing the escort ads in a magazine; Madoff often tried to pat Squillari’s butt; and he’d make a beeline to her desk after going to the bathroom and telling her, still zipping up his pants, “You know it excites you!” 

For more, click here.

. . . Here comes the spotlight on Palm Beach County again. The Bernie Madoff saga’s getting old, so two writers with Vanity Fair are in Wellington to look into the recent deaths of 21 polo horses before a U.S. Open match. TV equestrian sports commentator Mason Phelps is their guide. ESPN’s muckrakers, meanwhile, have already come and gone. The sports network’s newsmag E:60 explores the tragedy Tuesday at 7 p.m. with eyewitness accounts from the likes of star player Nacho Figueras . . .

. . . Don’t underestimate the magnetism of former American Idol winner David Cook. I’m told by a Sunfest official that when the $900-gold passes (backstage access, among other perks) for Saturday, the day of Cook’s show, were sold out, folks started buying five-day gold passes at $2,300-a-pop just to make sure they wouldn’t miss seeing rocker Cook close and personal . . .

Designers Richie Rich with friend Baby Chic at Sunday's party at Al Malnik's place

With the great unwashed frolicking on the beach below, title loan king Al Malnik had nearly 200 swells at his palatial Ocean Ridge digs for a Sunday afternoon party to benefit his pet charity, the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

Malnik and his wife Nancy welcomed the likes of: middleweight boxing world champ Bernard Hopkins; designers Richie Rich and Baby Chic (don’t ask); Bernie Madoff victim Jerome Fisher (who’s rumored to have “lost” $150 million); liquor mogul Harvey Chaplin; Mel Harris, former CEO of AIG, and his wife Fran; and others.

The party was poolside at Malnik’s 38,000-square-foot beachfronter, and not too many will blame him for not leaving folks outside. His place, appraised by the property appraiser’s office at a deceivingly low $19.8 million, is probably worth twice as much if you factor in what’s inside.

Malnik’s basement, for example, contains an Asian art collection that includes sculpted mammoth tusks and one Chinese ivory sculpture that features 8,000 different characters, all with a different face.

Next year, Malnik plans to move his rarely seen collection in the 18,000-square-foot  manse he’s building next door — “Something with a nice rec room for the kids,” he says.

For pictures of the party by Michele Sandberg, click (Read more…)