Bernard Madoff: 'I carried my victims for 20 years'

The Telegraph ^ | 6/7/2010 | James Quinn

[bruinbirdman]

Bernard Madoff has mocked the investors he swindled out of $65bn (£45bn), reportedly saying that he "carried them" for 20 years and that he took money from "greedy" rich people who wanted more.

The revelations come from an extended piece in New York Magazine, in which fellow inmates discussed Madoff's behaviour and actions during his time at New York's Metropolitan Correctional Centre (MCC) and the federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, where he is serving his sentence.

During his time at the MCC, he reportedly told one fellow prisoner that the crime was not fully of his own making, and that he felt unfairly caught up in the situation.

"People just kept throwing money at me," Madoff told a prison consultant, hired to advise him on how to cope with life behind bars. "Some guy wanted to invest, and if I said no, the guy said, 'What, I'm not good enough?' "

A drug dealer who spent time with Madoff inside, but has since been released, added: "He told me his side. He took money off of people who were rich and greedy and wanted more."

Madoff appears to hold his victims in contempt, snapping: "**** my victims. I carried them for 20 years, and now I'm doing 150 years."

The journalist who wrote the piece said in an interview that the impression he got was that Madoff was being treated like a "rock star" in prison: "He was a celebrity, he had groupies, he had people clamouring for his advice, and his autograph."

[Lorianne]

I have to agree with Madoff in one respect: Greed is a two way street.

[Mobties]

Now that you put it that way, Bernie, I guess those rich, greedy investors had it coming.

sarcasm/off

[Alberta's Child]

You know, there's a lot of truth to what he says.

I suspect that one of the reasons he got away with his crimes for so long is that a lot of his victims were very wealthy people who were too embarrassed to ever admit to a prosecutor that they had been conned.

[Joe 6-pack]

What Madoff did was clearly slimey, but pales in comparison to the sanctioned redistribution schemes of the government.

[devere]

“I have to agree with Madoff in one respect: Greed is a two way street.”

Actually Madoff appealed to his victims desire for safety, by providing alightly above average but extremely reliable returns. That’s why he was so diabolical, and was able to scam many intelligent and sensible people.

[freekitty]

Up to a point; however; scamming people in the first place is not.

[Alberta's Child]

That’s why he was so diabolical, and was able to scam many intelligent and sensible people.

I'm not sure I agree with that. For one thing, "intelligent and sensible people" should have known that safety and above-average returns are usually mutually exclusive. The reliability of those returns should have been a tip-off that the whole thing was a scam. Secondly, one of the key items I read about early in this case was a comment by a CPA who said that anyone who could read a financial report would have been tipped off to the scam right away.

[Moonman62]

Didn’t he invest money for some charities? What about them?

[rednesss]

"You can't cheat an honest man."

[VeniVidiVici]

Dumbass. He had to carry the dregs for 20 years otherwise his whole scheme would have gone down the tubes.

[Lorianne]

True.
But it is really hard to scam people who do not belive in “too good to be true”.

[Brimack34]

Sounds like Obama. Bernie needs a cellmate.

[devere]

Hindsight is 20-20.

In fact some of the best financiers, such as Warren Buffett, have provided well-above-average returns consistently; just not as consistently as Bernie Madoff.

Even finance professionals were taken in by Madoff, and only a few figured out it must be a scam.

The old saying is “you can’t cheat an honest man”, but Bernie Madoff proved it wrong. He was a diabolically clever scammer.

[Alberta's Child]

Understood. But it wasn’t just “well-above-average returns” that was the tip-off here. It was the fact that the returns were almost identical from one year to the next. Even a low-risk, low-return investment portfolio won’t provide a consistent return from one year to the next. When Madoff was consistently reporting 10%-12% returns for his clients, this should have been a major warning flag.