Bernard Madoff and "the largest fraud in the history of Wall Street"

"and eating pizza cooked by a convicted child molester,"

that's a really oddly placed detail

like is it supposed to imply the pizza is molested too?

eating is a recreational activity?

it is in prison

http://hotprisonpals.com/BernieMadoff.htm

be nice when we reach a time when prison rape's not a rich vein of humour for assholes

bernard madoff, free at last.

Great article imo.

“Fuck my victims."

“He told me his side. He took money off of people who were rich and greedy and wanted more,” says Hay, who was released in December. People, in other words, who deserved it.

Only if you count charities among the "rich and greedy"

some parts of the article made me doubt it's accuracy. for instance, this --

But Madoff has never been an intellectual—he has the mentality of “an auto mechanic,” one hedge-fund manager told me. He keeps it simple, and it works

-- might be true, but it's difficult to believe. running an enterprise, even an illusory, criminal enterprise, of that size and scope required intelligence and savvy.

not trying to demean auto mechanics, btw. i'm referring to the underlying, obvious inference of the hedge-fund manager.

I think you can distinguish intellectualism from intelligence. And in any case (not to diminish his intelligence) I think a lot of what made the scam work had more to do with his savvy at sales pitches and reassurances than the sophistication of the actual fraud (which I don't think was really all that sophisticated).

I have the distinct feeling that the higher reaches of finance are filled with genuine sociopaths and with merely objectionable people who aspire to be as sociopathic as the guy in the next cubicle, because within that culture, the more conscienceless you are, the greater your chances of advancement.

the higher reaches of any occupation contain people who lack scruples. so do prisons.

Mark Madoff -- Bernard's son -- committed suicide. He was found in his apartment this morning.

He hanged himself.

That's sad.

the complaint filed by the trustee overseeing the liquidation of bernard l. madoff investment securities llp ("blmis") against jpmorgan chase has been unsealed. it's a very long document, but well-written and fascinating to read.

Unsurprisingly, conflating own level of responsibility with fact that whole system is also fucked up:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/29/nyregion/bernard-l-madoff-says-he-was-made-a-human-pinata.html

"Human pinata"? Before reading it I already suspect it will say: Bernie decided to start a ponzi scheme for fun and profit, then objects that people started to expect too much of him in the way of returns and made running his ponzi scheme more stressful than it should have been.

That poor innocent man. Can't they reduce his sentence to 145 years or something?

Read the article, or some of it. The "human pinata" remark refers to Bernie objecting to the judge not just making him disgorge his ill-gotten gains, but whacking him with a long jail term to recompense society in some small way for the scandalous abuse of his fiduciary trust.

basically madoff says he's been unfairly punished for the sins of unrelated persons who really caused the prolonged recession (wall street bankers, and so forth). it's absurd.

I did read the article.

Sheesh. I mean, like, all I did was defraud people of roughly 250 million dollars and this mean old judge goes and makes a federal case out of it. It's not like I put millions of people out of work, like those all other guys (waves his hand at... no one in particular) who caused the recession. Why pick on me?

Oh, yes. It would be much easier being in jail if I didn't suffer such pangs of remorse.

I think the "read" Aimless typed was short for "I have now read" not "you go read"

Ah. Ok, that makes a lot more sense indeed.

while i do think that Madoff has been made a scapegoat for Wall Street's shenanigans, that doesn't mean that he hadn't done what he had been found guilty of doing nor that his sentence should be reduced by one day.

then again, this entire guy's life has been a never-ending story of escalating chutzpah ... so why stop now?!?

I'm just a murderer. I didn't cause the murder epidemic.

pleas of "yeah i suck and i did bad things, BUT HE DID SOMETHING MUCH WORSE OMIGODWTF!" can be surprisingly effective. but that won't be so for Bernie Madoff in either a court of law or the court of public opinion. even in this day and age, ripping off charities and widows won't get you any sympathy. Madoff should just STFU already.

bernard and ruth madoff supposedly tried to commit suicide after the scandal was exposed.

one of the most blatant attempts at sympathy trolling i've ever seen

yeah, that's my impression, too.

i thought i read that ruth was so furious at bernard after learning of the scheme that she totally divorced herself (legally and otherwise) from him. not saying this is necessarily inconsistent with a mutual suicide pact (or maybe my memory is inaccurate), but it seems odd.

i kind of keep forgetting this guy is still alive honestly. didn't his son kill himself?

yes.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gc2ksjK0U-TlVD910UnN-nZUNdEQ?docId=2f8c6eaa35c84e25949c500636fe95c2

Well, Bernie says he thought about it but didn't attempt it, so

anyone watching 60 mins?

someone tell me that it's okay that i kinda find ruth madoff to be incredibly sexy

for someone who is 65 or w/e

i was but seemed p boring?

idk the whole event still enthralls me

+ the son has never spoken, that part of it is v interesting to me...

i wish surm was watching this, he'd be so into ruth

http://www.badidea.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/bernard-ruth-madoff.jpg

so dignified, despite all

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_O9R7cVoh2qY/Socw_xUT1fI/AAAAAAAAAzk/lHlLr4qswAg/s400/ruthatbeach.jpg

Pfeiffer was so good as Ruth Madoff in "Wizard of Lies"

yeah, she was great.

bernie madoff definitely deserved his punishment. however, i think there is something to his claim that he was a scapegoat for problems that are endemic throughout wall street. those mortgage securities were essentially fraudulent too, but all the people beyond that got off, and the tea party ended up not being angry at the banks, but rather at the people who were misled into buying mortgages they couldn't afford.

a fraudster is currently president of the united states. he paid a 25 million dollar settlement this very year.

fraud is a major part of our economy and people, in general, admire scam artists if they can get away with it. so like, bernie madoff was right when he said that it was fucked up for that times reporter to compare him to ted bundy. that implies he is some wild outsider rather than an exaggerated version of a familiar type.