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Ronnie Polaneczky: Pen to paper: Will Madoff make him rich?
KENNETH CALVIN "K.C." White has good feelings about the Butner Federal Correctional Complex, in Butner, N.C., from which he was released last month.
K.C. earned his GED at Butner. Kicked his addictions. Found ways to express his phenomenal artistic talent.
And - this is key - he befriended Bernard Madoff at Butner.
K.C. hopes that his meeting with the notorious convicted Ponzi schemer will give him what he needs most as he tries to establish a new life in Philly, 400 miles from the prison where he met Madoff: cash.
K.C., a self-trained artist, sketched Madoff's portrait at Butner, then had him sign and date it.
K.C. is convinced that the right buyer will pay good coin for the black-and-white sketch that he penciled, because the date that Madoff wrote next to his autograph - Aug. 12, 2009 - indicates that the piece was created in jail.
K.C.'s name for the portrait?
"I call it 'F--- My Victims,' because Bernie is not very remorseful. He told me, 'I made them millions of dollars. I'm doing 150 years. F--- my victims.' "
Madoff's attorney, Ira Sorkin, doubts that Madoff would ever utter such words.
Says Sorkin: "At all times, he expressed deep and sincere remorse, both publicly and privately, for everyone who he put through" the Ponzi scheme that ballooned into the largest investment fraud - victims lost billions of dollars - ever committed by a single person.
Since Madoff himself wasn't available for an interview, and because the federal Bureau of Prisons wouldn't comment on anything Madoff-related other than to confirm that he's at the Butner complex, this story is K.C.'s alone.
But, oh, what a tale.
Back in 2003, K.C., now 55, was frantic. He'd been living in Philly and collecting disability because of coronary artery disease, but his payments were suddenly discontinued.
He didn't know that he could appeal the denial. Penniless, he muttered to himself, "I'm gonna have to rob a bank."
Which is something any of us might threaten to do, in jest, when money's tight, right?
K.C. actually did it.
He pretended to have a weapon in his pocket when he passed a holdup note to a Sovereign Bank teller at 31st and Market in April 2003. He darted out the door with $457. The next month, he tried the same thing at a PNC bank up the block. But the teller tripped an alarm, and K.C. bolted, empty-handed.
After an acquaintance dimed him out, K.C. was convicted in federal court of bank robbery and attempted bank robbery. He wound up at Butner and lucked into a nice routine when an administrator agreed to let him paint a small mural on the wall of his unit's medical clinic.
People liked it so much, K.C. was asked to paint murals all over Butner - the gym, dental clinic, cafeteria, even an administrator's office.
