In his First interview since going to jail in 2001, Bernie Madoff says that his family was clueless about his Ponzi scheme. When it came to banks and hedge funds, however, it was a different matter.
"They had to know," Madoff said. "But the attitude was sort of, 'If you're doing something wrong, we don't want to know.' " Speaking from prison where he is serving a 15-year sentence, Madoff said certain banks and hedge funds (which he did not name) were "complicit" in his 16-year fraud. He said they exercised "willful blindness" by ignoring irregularities that eventually cost investors $20 billion in cash and $65 billion in paper wealth. Madoff stops short of accusing the banks of collusion. Nevertheless, defense lawyers are certain to question Madoff's credibility, given his history. Madoff's son committed suicide in December 2010 two years after his father was arrested for fraud.
Read original story in The New York Times
Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2011
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