Bernard Madoff asserted in a prison interview that banks and hedge funds he did not identify were somehow “complicit” in the fraud scheme that sent him to jail for 150 years, the New York Times reported.
In a two-hour interview from the Butner, North Carolina, prison visitor room conducted by the newspaper, Madoff said, “they had to know.”
In what he described as “willful blindness” of some banks and hedge funds, Madoff said the attitude was, “if you’re doing something wrong, we don’t want to know.”
Madoff acknowledged his guilt in the interview, the newspaper said.
Madoff, 72, also revealed that one of the biggest surprises of his downfall was the number of people claiming to have suspected him of wrongdoing before his scheme crumbled.
“I’m reading more now about how suspicious they were than I ever realized at the time,” Madoff said.
In an e-mail correspondence with a Times reporter writing a book on him, Madoff revealed he’s been working with Picard to claw back money for his victims.
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
One Response
Of course Madoff is right. There is a very thin line between what he did and what the world of finance and goverment do every day to make a buck.