Bernie Madoff dies at 82
Diana Henriques, financial writer and NYT bestselling author of "The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust” joins Yahoo Finance’s Julia La Roche and the Yahoo Finance Live panel to discuss the death of Bernie Madoff.
Video transcript
JULIA LA ROCHE: Bernie Madoff, the infamous Ponzi schemer, died in federal prison this morning at the age of 82. He was serving a 150-year prison term. We're joined now by Diana Henriques, the author of the best-selling book, "The Wizard of Lies, Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust." This book was also adapted into an HBO film starring Robert De Niro. Diana, it's great to talk to you again. So I would like to know, as someone who has talked to Bernie Madoff many times over the years, what was your last conversation with him?
DIANA HENRIQUES: Oh, it was a good number of years ago, actually. I tried to reach out to him when he applied for clemency on medical grounds, but was unable to get through. So I spoke with him about the time that the HBO adaptation came out. He's a very talented self-justifying person. So it's intriguing to kind of see how his mind worked as he tried to adjust himself to the reality of being in prison that long.
JULIA LA ROCHE: Do you think-- did he ever show any sort of remorse, based on your conversations with him during his time served?
DIANA HENRIQUES: You know, Julia, that's a great question because it changed. Initially, he had the right script. He was saying all the right words about-- similar to his comments in the courtroom when he was sentenced, apologizing to his victims, feeling sorry that he had betrayed people who had trusted him so completely.
But as the years went by, that hardened. That became more grudging, in a way. Well, they should have known. They should be grateful for what they got while they were investing, that kind of thing. And I pushed back on it when I encountered it. But my personal feeling really is that to the extent that he felt genuine remorse, it was for the catastrophe that he brought down on his own family, on the people he loved most and cared most about. And of course, he destroyed his family completely. That remorse, I believe, was genuine. But as the years went by and his years in prison extended, I don't think he really could make an authentic expression of remorse for his victims.
JULIA LA ROCHE: Diana, you-- in your book, you wrote about how you covered Madoff. I think it was back when you were covering NASDAQ pricings or something if I recall. It's been a couple of years since I've read it. But you've covered him for a long time. And this Ponzi scheme, it went on for a long time. So, I guess, it's a two-part question. Why do you think he was able to get away with it for that long? And I suppose on the regulatory side, there were many credible tips to the SEC. Why did they miss it? And do you think they're equipped now-- better equipped now to spot these Ponzi schemes?
DIANA HENRIQUES: Well, certainly, he was living a double life. I mean, he really is the modern Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He was an eminently trustworthy figure on Wall Street through his entire career. His brokerage firm had minimal regulatory issues. He was widely respected, consulted, admired. He testified at congressional hearings. He attended SEC roundtables. So there was nothing in his makeup or track record that would lead you to say, whoa, I'm not trusting this guy. He had all of the trappings of a trustworthy person.
Why did the SEC miss it? Well, partly that they saw the outer Bernie Madoff that the rest of us saw and believed was trustworthy. Yes, he had been in my Rolodex for a long, long time because of his mastery of how stock markets were structured and how they were changing in the age of the computer. So I had interviewed him as a Wall Street statesman and expert, as had the SEC.
It was a vast failure of imagination, Julia. They could not imagine that this man could be a Ponzi schemer. They had an image in their mind of what a Ponzi schemer looks like. A lot of us do, and it's very dangerous. But in fact, a Ponzi schemer doesn't look like a monster or the Joker on the cover of New York Magazine.
A Ponzi schemer looks like Robert De Niro playing Bernie Madoff. They have to be trustworthy. They are always successful and admirable and fine figures in their community. So I think that's the real lesson of Bernie's long running fraud. How he was able to get away with it for so long is, we think we know what con artists look like, but we don't.
