‘You Have A Collect Call From Bernard Madoff’
New York Magazine’s Steve Fishman wrote to financial criminal Bernie Madoff hoping for an interview. He could hardly have known what a coup would result:
…one evening a few weeks ago, my home phone rang. “You have a collect call from Bernard Madoff, an inmate at a federal prison,” a recorded message announced. Out of nowhere, there was that accent, familiar to anyone who’s visited Queens. Madoff apologized for calling collect. “I don’t have that much money in my commissary account,” he told me, before starting on a remarkable conversation that would stretch to several hours in more than a dozen phone calls. This being Bernie Madoff, in dollar terms the greatest criminal in history, I didn’t know what to believe. But I listened…
For anyone interested in the psychology of the man made famous for his long-running Ponzi scheme, it’s a must read story.
The United States Economy: One Massive Ponzi Scheme?
Bernard Madoff
Thank you, Bernie, for breaking your silence – even if you are still clinging to that cover-up mode you adopted since you took the entirety of the blame for your crimes.
What is clear is that ripping off the rich is punished far more severely than ripping off the poor. The lengthy sentence you were given spared countless other greedsters and goniffs from facing the music – what music there is.
In an interview – with a reporter from The New York Times who is writing a book to cash in on a man who has already cashed out – we learn, in the vaguest terms, that Mr M believes the banks he did his crooked business with “should have known” his figures did not figure. Keeping with the deceit that has served him well over the years, he names no names.
That said, how right he may be. There were many who should…
Ponerology 101: The Psychopath’s Mask of Sanity
Harrison Koehli writes on Signs of The Times:
A Wall Street Psychopath?
In 1960 Bernie Madoff founded his Wall Street firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. As chairman of its Board of Directors until his arrest in December of 2008, Madoff saw his firm (and himself) rise to prominence on Wall Street, developing the technology that became NASDAQ, the first and largest electronic stock exchange in America, in the process.
A multimillionaire with over $800-million in shared assets with his wife and high school sweetheart, Ruth Alpern, Madoff was well-regarded as a financial mastermind and prolific philanthropist. He exuded an aura of wealth, confidence, and connections, and many trusted him as a pillar of the community. Sounds like a great guy, huh?
His humanitarian image was supported by his work for various nonprofit groups like the American Jewish Congress and Yeshiva University in New York, the various commissions and boards on which he…
Bid On Bernie’s Madoff’s Plunder
Now’s your chance to make off with some of the trappings of arch-villain Bernie Madoff’s preposterous plunder of investors large and small. From NJ.com:
What’s it like to walk in Bernie Madoff’s shoes? You’ll get a chance to buy them, along with the billionaire swindler’s monogrammed socks, size 40-short suits and other items from his New York City and Montauk homes at an auction to be held in Morris County this spring.
James Plousis, U.S. Marshall for New Jersey, has worked out a deal to use donated space at the county’s public safety academy in Parsippany for a Madoff auction, likely to be held in April or May.
“We want to run an auction for as little cost as possible, so that just about every penny we make can go back to the victims,’’ Plousis said Wednesday. “I called Sheriff (Edward) Rochford in Morris County and he and the freeholders were very accommodating to…
Bernie Madoff Seriously Injured After Falling Out of Prison Bed
Reported by ABC News:
DURHAM, NC — A source tells ABC11 Eyewitness News that disgraced financier Bernie Madoff is being treated for serious injuries after he fell out of his prison bed.
ABC11 Eyewitness News first reported that Madoff had injuries consistent with an assault. Now, the source says Madoff was not attacked in prison, but that he fell off a bed onto his face. The source said there was a lot of facial bleeding.
Sources also confirmed Madoff was treated at Duke University Medical Center in Durham last Friday and discharged earlier this week. He is serving a life sentence at the federal prison in Butner after admitting to cheating investors out of billions of dollars.
According to the sources, Madoff came to Duke with facial fractures, broken ribs and a collapsed lung.
Madoff Explains How He Concealed Fraud
CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston reports:
In a wide-ranging jailhouse interview with SEC Inspector General David Kotz, convicted swindler Bernard Madoff explained how he managed to conceal his multi-billion-dollar fraud operation.
“It never entered the SEC’s mind that it was a Ponzi scheme,” Madoff said, because of “the reputation I had.”
“They thought the likelihood of Madoff being a big criminal was probably not something that was realistic,” said Paul Atkins, a former SEC Commissioner.
At the height of his career, Madoff was regarded as a financial genius, he even served as chairman of NASDAQ.
In 2003, Madoff was sure he would be caught and was surprised when investigators did not check his accounts to see if he had actually traded stocks – which he had not.
It is accounting 101, Madoff told the inspector general, to look at DTC – Depositor Trust Commission – to discover a Ponzi scheme.
“With one phone call they could have brought the…
Madoff Friend, Jeffry Picower Found Dead At Bottom Of Pool
Sound a little fishy?
from AP:
PALM BEACH, Fla. — Jeffry Picower, a philanthropist accused of profiting more than $7 billion from the investment schemes of his longtime friend Bernard Madoff, was found at the bottom of the pool at his oceanside mansion and died Sunday, police said. He was 67.
Picower’s wife, Barbara, discovered his body and pulled him from the water with help from a housekeeper, authorities said. He was pronounced dead at Good Samaritan Medical Center at about 1:30 p.m.
Palm Beach police are investigating the death as a drowning, but have not ruled out anything on the cause of death.
