The brother of convicted Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernard Madoff had his assets frozen by a New York state judge as part of a $2 million lawsuit filed by an investor who lost $470,000 in Madoff’s fraud.

New York Supreme Court Justice Stephen Bucaria yesterday signed an order temporarily freezing assets of Peter Madoff, who was chief compliance officer of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, according to a copy of the order. Bucaria will hold a hearing on April 3 in Nassau County.

Peter Madoff served as trustee for a $470,000 inheritance that 22-year-old law student Andrew Samuels received in 2003, his father, Howard Samuels, said in an interview. The judge issued the order in a lawsuit filed yesterday by the younger Samuels, who is suing Peter Madoff for $2 million for breaching his fiduciary duty by investing his inheritance with Bernard Madoff.

“All of his assets” are frozen, Howard Samuels said. “Everything.”

The order prohibits Peter Madoff, who lives in Old Westbury, New York, on Long Island, from removing, transferring or encumbering any funds or property and requires him to disclose all assets he owns. Andrew Samuels’ lawyer, Steven Schlesinger, said the freeze order reaches all of Madoff’s assets.

The vouchers have helped cover the cost of private school for foster children and disabled students. The justices ruled Wednesday that the programs run afoul of the Arizona Constitution's bans on using tax dollars to support private schools.

Lower courts had split on the issue.

Arizona's high court previously upheld another state effort to help defray the costs of private-school education. In 1999 it said an income tax credit for individuals making donations for private school scholarships was constitutional.

Republican Norm Coleman, trying to regain his U.S. Senate seat, visited the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday and didn't rule out an appeal if a Minnesota court rules against him in his recount battle against Democrat Al Franken.

One of Minnesota's two Senate seats has been vacant this year after an election last November was so close it triggered a statewide recount. Coleman's first Senate term expired in January, and he is contesting the recount outcome that put Franken ahead by 225 votes.

The uncertainty has eroded Democratic party sway, and with it President Barack Obama's agenda, in the U.S. Senate. Democrats now control 58 of the 100 Senate seats, and they have sometimes struggled to get the 60 votes required to clear procedural hurdles under Senate rules.

The Minnesota court decision on Coleman's old seat could come "any day," Coleman told reporters in the Capitol, where he had come to attend the Senate Republican's weekly luncheon and brief senators on his court battle.

"We'll have to see what they (the Minnesota judges) do and see what the next step is," Coleman said. "I'm not anticipating at this point being across the street," he continued, looking out the window at the U.S. Supreme Court building.

But "this is about getting it right," he said. "If this court doesn't do that, we'll kind of look at the next level."

The Obama administration on Thursday detailed its wide-ranging plan to overhaul financial regulation by subjecting hedge funds and traders of exotic financial instruments, now among the biggest and most freewheeling players on Wall Street, to potentially strict new government supervision.

The Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, outlined the plan Thursday before the House Financial Services Committee. He said the changes were needed to fix a badly flawed system that was exposed by the current financial crisis. Mr. Geithner, in his opening statement, called for “comprehensive reform. Not modest repairs at the margin, but new rules of the game.”

Included in the plan would be the establishment of one single agency “with responsibility for systemic stability over the major institutions and critical payment and settlement systems and activities.”

To that end, Mr. Geithner said: “Financial products and institutions should be regulated for the economic function they provide and the risks they present, not the legal form they take,” Mr. Geithner said. “We can’t allow institutions to cherry pick among competing regulators, and shift risk to where it faces the lowest standards and constraints.”

He did not provide details for how all this will work, saying that the proposals would be outlined over the coming weeks.

The plan, which would require Congressional approval, would give the government new powers over “systemically important” banks and other financial institutions that are so big that their collapse would jeopardize the economy as a whole.

The government would have the power to peer into the inner workings of companies that currently escape most federal supervision — insurance companies like the American International Group, multibillion-dollar hedge funds like the Citadel Group and private equity firms like the Carlyle Group or Kohlberg, Kravis & Roberts.

If regulators decided that a company had become “too big to fail,” as was the case with A.I.G. in September, they would subject it to much stricter capital requirements than smaller rivals and much closer scrutiny of its borrowing levels and its trading partners, or counterparties.

The 2003 campaign used eight, 60-square-foot (5.6-sq. meter) panels depicting images of factory farms next to Jewish concentration camp inmates and the slogan "Holocaust on your plate."

The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe on Thursday ruled that the ad campaign was not protected under freedom of speech laws.

PETA — People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals — claimed its goal was to compare Nazi-run concentration camps with contemporary animal abuse.

Paul Spiegel, former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, filed the suit against the ad campaign along with several other Jewish organizations.

Less than a week after pushing through legislation to impose a 90 percent tax on the bonuses, the House Financial Services Committee prepared a considerably milder proposal that would let Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and financial regulators decide if employee compensation was "unreasonable" or "excessive."

The panel was expected to endorse the measure on Thursday, paving the way for a floor vote as early as next week.

The proposal, sponsored by Democratic Reps. Alan Grayson of Florida and James Himes of Connecticut, would not force employees of insurance giant AIG to give back money already paid to them. But it would empower the government to stop future payouts by financial institutions even if employees have been promised the money.

The bill would exempt firms willing to participate in a government-sponsored program aimed at buying up $1 trillion of bad debt, or "toxic assets," sitting on the books of major banks.

Republicans opposed the bill because they said it was too vague.

"Private investors need certainty that Washington will not change the rules of the game while the game is being played," said Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the committee's top Republican.

But Democrats said it was necessary to protect taxpayer dollars. They pointed to a provision that would require Geithner to set standards to measure an employee's performance and the stability of a financial institution before bonuses are paid.