Richard Behar
Courtesy: Lizzie Cohen
You in all probability have not heard Bernie Madoff‘s identify in awhile, however that does not imply the notorious fraudster’s story is over, or the ache he inflicted.
Irving Picard, an 83-old court-appointed trustee, nonetheless spends his days making an attempt to claw again cash from the those that benefitted from Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, and to cut back the staggering losses of others.
Greater than 100 authorized battles over the best identified fraud in historical past nonetheless rage on.
Richard Behar, who has simply revealed a brand new biography, “Madoff: The Last Phrase,” can also be nonetheless making an attempt to know how Madoff’s thoughts labored. What permits an individual to tear off Elie Wiesel, who survived the Holocaust and went on to grow to be a major chronicler of it? Or to sit down together with his spouse, Ruth, in a theater and revel in a film whereas figuring out that he is erased the life financial savings of hundreds of individuals everywhere in the world?
These questions haunted Behar — who tells CNBC he has lengthy been fascinated by con-artists. So lengthy after most different reporters had turned their consideration elsewhere, he reached out to Madoff whereas the monetary legal served out his 150-year jail sentence in North Carolina.
Richard Behar’s ebook ‘Madoff: The Last Phrase.’
Behar began by sending his condolences to Madoff, whose son, Mark, had simply died by suicide in Dec. 2010, the second anniversary of his father’s arrest.
Shortly after, an electronic mail topic line popped up in Behar’s inbox: “Inmate: MADOFF, BERNARD L.” That message was the begin to a decade-long relationship between the 2 males, together with roughly 50 cellphone conversations, a whole lot of emails and three in-person visits. When Madoff died in April 2021, Behar was nonetheless writing the biography. Madoff usually complained to Behar that he was taking too lengthy on the ebook.
“He as soon as joked that he’d be useless when it got here out, which in fact turned out to be true, though I by no means deliberate it that means,” Behar stated.
CNBC interviewed Behar, an award-winning journalist and contributing editor of investigations at Forbes, over electronic mail this month. (The dialog has been edited and condensed for fashion and readability.)
‘He by no means requested me one private query’
Annie Nova: You write that you simply’re an investigative reporter with “a particular fondness for scammers.” Why do you assume that’s?
Richard Behar: I’ve all the time been mesmerized by how the brains of scammers work. I am particularly intrigued, perhaps obsessed, with scammers who steal from people who find themselves very near them — like Madoff did.
A scamster who I visited in jail within the Nineties did one thing comparable. Till Bernie’s arrest, this man ran the lengthiest identified Ponzi scheme ever, for 11 years. He was orphaned and raised by an aunt and uncle, and but financially devoured them, in addition to his cousins, his spouse’s mother and father, his finest good friend — even a nun who he charmed together with his alleged religion in god. I wasn’t raised by my organic mother and father both, and spent my childhood in foster houses. I could not fake to think about doing that to individuals who stepped as much as take care of me, nevertheless it’s endlessly fascinating to me. Perhaps that is the place that fondness for scammers is rooted.
Bernard Madoff arrives at Manhattan Federal courtroom on March 12, 2009 in New York Metropolis.
Stephen Chernin | Getty Pictures Information | Getty Pictures
AN: Did Madoff take any curiosity in your life?
RB: By way of an almost decade-long relationship, he by no means requested me one private query. That was mind-boggling. I might generally give him openings, like telling him I grew up in a city not removed from his hometown — with the same however poorer Jewish subculture — however he stated nothing. He could not care much less. I requested a psychologist about this, and she or he theorized that Bernie was such a malignant narcissist that he could not “maintain my actuality, he may solely maintain his personal.” I could not be a three-dimensional human being to him, as a result of if he can think about that, he’d should think about the college trainer who has misplaced a pension.
AN: What was essentially the most regret you noticed him present over what he’d completed?
RB: I as soon as requested if he may ever forgive himself for the Ponzi itself, and he stated “No, by no means.” He insisted he felt nice regret for many who he stole from. However I by no means completely felt it. By no means a tear. I requested why he did not cry at his sentencing, and he snapped: “After all I did not cry; I used to be cried out.”
‘Jail was an incredible reduction for him’
AN: How did Madoff say life in jail modified him?
RB: He by no means talked about it. He as soon as described himself as feeling numb. I stated, “I am unable to think about what it could be like.” He replied, “You do not need to know, you do not need to know.”
In some methods, I feel being in jail was an incredible reduction for him. Operating a half-century Ponzi has bought to be exhausting. In jail, he’d usually get up in his cell at round 4 a.m., make espresso in mattress with an instantaneous sizzling water machine, then learn, or hearken to NPR till breakfast. He labored within the kitchen, then the laundry room after which oversaw the inmates’ pc room.
That final job cracked me up as a result of he instructed me he may barely flip a pc on in his workplace, which ought to have been a crimson flag to everybody on the firm that he wasn’t truly buying and selling shares.
AN: You write that he was seeing a therapist in jail. Do we all know usually this was, or for a way lengthy it lasted? Did it appear to be serving to him?
RB: He ended one cellphone chat abruptly as a result of he needed to get to one in every of his weekly appointments together with his psychologist. When he referred to as me afterwards, I requested the way it went. He laughed and stated it was useful, that she was a “terrific woman” and that he thinks he ought to have completed remedy years earlier than. However even when the classes had been useful, he stated he by no means discovered the solutions he sought about why he did the fraud and why he damage so many individuals.
NEW YORK – MARCH 12: Financier Bernard Madoff passes the gathered press as he arrives at Manhattan Federal courtroom on March 12, 2009 in New York Metropolis. Madoff was anticipated to plead responsible to all 11 felony prices introduced by prosecutors on monetary misdoings, and will find yourself with a sentence of 150 years in jail.
Chris Hondros | Getty Pictures
He was disturbed by press studies that referred to as him a sociopath. He stated he requested his therapist, “Am I a sociopath? A variety of shoppers had been family and friends — how may I do that?” Bernie claims that she instructed him that individuals have the flexibility to compartmentalize, like mobsters that kill after which go dwelling and maintain their youngsters.
You simply put it out of your thoughts. I requested if she got here up with a prognosis. He stated, no, only a compartmentalizer. Perhaps she instructed him that to make him really feel higher since he wasn’t ever getting out.
AN: For thus a few years, it gave the impression of Madoff was simply ready to be caught. Is that proper? Did he all the time know he would not have the ability to get away with this? What was residing in that suspended state like for him?
RB: Bernie stated he was beneath fixed stress over the Ponzi, and would speak out loud to himself generally within the workplace, due to the stress. One in every of his greatest shops for relieving the stress was sitting in darkish theaters together with his spouse Ruth, he stated, watching motion pictures twice per week. He additionally stated he deluded himself into pondering some “miracle” would come alongside to bail him out of the Ponzi, however that he knew for not less than the final decade earlier than his arrest that he’d by no means get out from beneath it.
The one time he actually relaxed, he stated, was on weekends when he was out on his yacht. I interviewed a former FBI behavioral evaluation skilled who urged Bernie felt secure on the boat as a result of he may see 360 levels round him, all the way in which to the horizon, so he’d have lots of forewarning {that a} menace was coming.
‘Not a single investor’ had complained to the SEC
AN: You paint a very attention-grabbing portrait of the determine of Irving Picard, an 83-year-old court-appointed trustee, who has spent years making an attempt to get a refund for Madoff’s buyers. Has this been Picard’s solely job over time? Why has he made this his life mission?
RB: Picard hardly ever talks with the press. I used to be simply chatting with John Moscow, a former chief white-collar crimes prosecutor for the Manhattan DA’s workplace who labored on some Madoff instances for the trustee. He stated: “Irving is a really devoted public servant.” He is laser targeted on his activity. John’s phrases had been: “He is not manic about it, however he is very shut.”
In my ebook, I quote a former federal prosecutor saying which you could probe this case for 50 years and nonetheless not get to all of the truths, however Picard is not excited about that. It has been his solely chapter case since 4 days after Bernie’s arrest in 2008. He’s ferocious in the direction of web winners who will not return funds, however he is usually a smooth teddy bear with those that haven’t got the cash for him to claw again. He might allow them to pay it over time, or he’ll take somebody’s home however go away them a life curiosity in it.
AN: What do you assume folks get most mistaken about Madoff?
RB: Lots of people who misplaced cash get it mistaken by blaming him fully, quite than wanting within the mirror and asking themselves how they may have put themselves in such hazard. Madoff’s constant and excessive returns had been merely not doable. Even so, many web losers assume the federal government owes them as a result of the SEC did not seize Bernie. However that company’s mandate has by no means been to guard folks from silly funding selections.
Financier Bernard Madoff arrives at Manhattan Federal courtroom on March 12, 2009 in New York Metropolis. Madoff is scheduled to enter a responsible plea on 11 felony counts which beneath federal regulation can lead to a sentence of about 150 years. (Picture by Stephen Chernin/Getty Pictures)
Stephen Chernin | Getty Pictures
I discussed to you that I went to a jail again within the ’90s to go to the man who had the longest-running Ponzi previous to Madoff’s arrest. Identical to Bernie, that swindler couldn’t have completed it with no huge financial institution’s complicity. In that case — an 11-year-long Ponzi — an investor reached out to the SEC to complain that he’d misplaced cash though he’d been assured a preposterous 20-25% return. The scamster was arrested the next day.
In Bernie’s case, not a single investor over the half-century of his fraud contacted the SEC. They had been too busy splashing round within the gravy.
