How a Charity Linked to Madoff’s Circle Pumps Millions Into Causes It Battles
# **The Charity, the Watchdog, and the Private Equity Firms Caught in a Web of Conflicts**
## **A Charity Built on Contradictions**
In 2011, a woman whose late husband once worked alongside Bernie Madoff established *Freedom Together*, a charity that has since grown into a financial powerhouse. While the foundation’s leader draws a modest salary, its accounts swell with seven-figure donations annually—raising questions about who truly benefits when a watchdog group and its funders share the same boardroom.
Since 2019, *Freedom Together* has quietly funneled nearly **$1 million** into *PESP*, a research organization that warns regulators about the dangers of private equity. PESP’s reports accuse these firms of manipulating financial data, saddling hospitals with unsustainable debt, and inflating rents solely to boost profits. Lawmakers have echoed these concerns in hearings from 2021 through this year.
## **The Irony of Invested Interests**
But here’s the twist: Freedom Together’s own funds are invested in many of the same private equity firms that PESP targets.
- $21 million is parked in Carlyle Group—a firm PESP accuses of fraudulent greenwashing, union-busting, and artificially inflating home prices.
- Another $4.5 million sits in Brookfield Corporation, another frequent subject of PESP’s criticism for similar practices.
While PESP’s reports seek to tarnish these companies’ reputations, Freedom Together’s endowment grows—benefiting from the very firms it allegedly opposes.
A Web of Silence
Critics argue that a charity funding a watchdog group that condemns its own investments creates an impossible conflict of interest. Yet when asked for comment, neither Freedom Together nor PESP has provided an explanation.
The losers in this arrangement? Workers and renters, who bear the real-world consequences when financial strategies enrich a select few at the top. If the goal is genuine oversight, donations that directly benefit the overseen seem to undermine the mission entirely.
