NYC toy fair vendor offers Madoff doll -- to smash

[February 17, 2009]  NEW YORK (AP) -- Mad at disgraced investor Bernard Madoff? There's a toy just for you. One of the vendors at this week's Toy Fair is offering the "Smash-Me Bernie," a $99.95 Madoff look-alike doll that wears a devil-red suit and carries a pitchfork. It comes with its own hammer -- so you can pulverize it.

Phoenix, Ariz.-based ModelWorks is behind the caricature Mini-Me figures, which can be customized to look like celebrities or whomever a buyer chooses.

Madoff was arrested in December after investigators said he confessed to his sons that he had swindled investors of $50 billion in a Ponzi scheme.

The toy fair is open only to the industry and runs through Wednesday.

[Associated Press]

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