J. Ezra Merkin, the financier who handed more than $2 billion of his clients' money over to Bernie Madoff, has been sued by the New York attorney general. The New York Times employs Merkin's sister...

....Which is not something you'd find out by reading the NYT's story on the matter. It does a great job explaining how Andrew Cuomo just filed a civil suit against Merkin alleging "fraud and deception," for collecting $470 million in fees just for handing billions over to Madoff. But it doesn't say anything about Daphne Merkin, J. Ezra's sister, who's a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine. And who wrote a piece on Madoff with a grossly inadequate disclosure just last month!

When Daphne wrote her breezy op-ed about how Madoff's victims aren't really victims, the totality of her disclosure was a parenthetical statement that "I did not know Mr. Madoff nor did I invest with his firm, but have a sibling who did business with him." That pissed off lots of people, including the Times' public editor. But since then, the paper has not appended any more disclosure to the piece, nor have they run any sort of correction, apparently. Here are the three most recent Merkin-related corrections from the NYT:

February 21, 2009 Saturday
Late Edition - Final
CORRECTIONS

An article last Saturday about an adviser to the money manager J. Ezra Merkin, who invested $2 billion of his clients' money with Bernard L. Madoff, overstated action taken by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the early 1990s against the adviser. Although the adviser, Victor Teicher, who provided investment advice to Mr. Merkin while Mr. Teicher was in prison for securities fraud, was barred by the S.E.C. from providing investment advice to registered securities advisers, he was not barred from advising unregistered advisers like Mr. Merkin.

The article also may have left the incorrect impression that Mr. Teicher was required to disclose his arrangement with Mr. Merkin in two unsuccessful applications to the S.E.C. in 2007 and 2008 in his effort to re-enter the securities business. The terms of his agreement with the S.E.C. did not require such a disclosure.

January 17, 2009 Saturday
Late Edition - Final
CORRECTION

An article on Friday about J. Ezra Merkin, a New York financier under investigation in the Bernard Madoff fraud,
Enhanced Coverage Linking
Madoff fraud, misstated the losses of Bard College, whose money Mr. Merkin invested with Mr. Madoff. It lost $3 million of its $11 million investment, not the entire investment. The article also referred incorrectly to the role of the late Leon Levy in Mr. Merkin's appointment to the board of the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College. While Mr. Levy introduced Mr. Merkin to Bard officials, he did not recommend him for the board.

December 18, 2008 Thursday
Late Edition - Final
CORRECTIONS

Because of an editing error, an article on Tuesday about the effect on several charities of a fraud involving a Wall Street investment fund run by Bernard L. Madoff misidentified an investment concern that worked with Mr. Madoff's fund on behalf of the SAR Academy, a Jewish school in the Bronx. It is Ascot Partners, an investment fund operated by J. Ezra Merkin — not the Ascot Fund, which is a charity affiliated with the National Alopecia Areata Foundation.

Also because of an editing error, the article misstated the effect of the closing of the JEHT Foundation, whose money was invested in Mr. Madoff's fund, on the Center for Investigative Reporting. The center has received significant grants over the years from the foundation and its budget this year includes money from previous JEHT grants, but the center is not ''losing revenue.''

Nitpicky! But not when it comes to his sister. So anyhow, J. Ezra Merkin has been sued by the AG for his Madoff-related activities, and his sister writes for the New York Times, sometimes about Madoff-related activities, but their relationship is not worth discussing much.