A lot has been said about the world’s most notorious fraudster Bernard Madoff over the past couple of weeks. However, following his court case in lower Manhattan today one thing now appears clear: He acted alone.
Federal Regulators have been hinting for months that they suspect Madoff family members and other lower level employees of being involved in what has been named the largest Ponzi scheme in history. However, not one shred of evidence implicates anyone other than Bernie Madoff himself in the plot to defraud investors of more than $64 billion. Suggesting that he had any help perpetrating this crime is simply ridiculous. The following is a point by point case analysis of why I believe Bernie acted alone:
Bernie never invested the money.
How hard is it to deceive 4,800 clients, all of your employees, and each member of your family for more than 20 years? It’s simple if you never invest. Smart move #1 Bernie. If you don’t buy anything, it makes keeping track of stuff a lot easier. Now all you have to do is forge thousands of client statements, convince your traders that their computers are actually working, and pocket all the money without any of the hundreds of accountants you employ noticing. This is child’s play for Bernie. What could be easier for a man who has his only degree in political science, and prior to starting his pyramid scheme was a lifeguard? His in-depth market knowledge and rigorous market training put him head and shoulders above his colleagues in the market. He was the head of NASDAQ for crying out loud. Bernie is just way smarter than anyone else.
Bernie is broke.
Tell me this: Why is Bernie the only one broke here if he wasn’t acting alone? Seriously. Bernie had such a big heart that he tried to give people back their money, starting with his employees. The day that he was arrested he was trying to pay back $173 million to his friends and employees via personal checks. You would figure that if anyone else had stolen money they would have tried to return it too. His wife certainly is innocent and it is obvious that she knew nothing about the scheme. Ruth Madoff has over $69 million of her own money. Admittedly, almost all of that money is in an account at COHMAD Securities Corp, a company owned by Bernie, but that is her money. So what if she took $10 million out of that account the day before the FBI arrested him, she earned that money working part-time as part of Bernie’s philanthropy company. No one ever uses charities for fraudulent schemes. Al-Qaeda and all terrorist financing groups do not count.
Bernie is really good with computers.
Although Bernie has no formal computer training, I would like to remind readers that he was the head of NASDAQ for God sake. NASDAQ is a completely computerized trading marketplace. I am sure that Bernie was good friends with the IT folks over there and that he learned how to completely automate his back office and trading logs so that it appeared as though he wasn’t stealing everyone’s money ever second of every day. Bernie is capable of creating complex algorithms that were so mathematically precise that the investments that he did not make perfectly correlated with the actual returns in the market place for the fake trading positions he did make. As a result, no one would ever question the performance of the portfolio since the returns from his fake positions perfectly matched the returns on the stocks the traders thought they were placing. Really brilliant Bernie, good work.
Bernie has retarded family members.
Don’t let titles fool you. Even though his sons and relatives have held high ranking positions in his company as well as with the main securities regulating entities like the NASD (National Association of Securities Dealers) and SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), they are really stupid. Bernie’s son Mark Madoff, Director of Listed Trading at Madoff Securities, is said to be so dumb that he can barely utter his name. Bernie covered for him during his career by telling everyone that it was an honorary title. Andrew, the youngest son had his degree from prestigious Wharton straight-up bought by Bernie. Students from his 1988 graduating class have no memory of him. Andrew also received the strictly honorary title of Nasdaq Trading Director. Bernie’s idiot brother Peter was head of trading. Peter is exceptionally stupid since he didn’t realize that no trades were placed during his tenure as department head. Niece Shana is probably the stupidest person at Madoff Securities since her job was that of Compliance Director. Childhood IQ tests show her scores below the 45 level, which technically indicates mental retardation. With this line-up of mediocre people, and the relative unimportance of the jobs they held, it is not hard to see that none of them saw this coming. Bernie had all the fools fooled.
Bernie said so.
All of the stuff listed above is pretty convincing and all, but those points are nothing compared to this one. If you wanted to know if other people were involved wouldn’t the best source of information be the criminal himself? So the guy told one lie, big deal. Don’t you think that he has learned his lesson? Don’t you think the guy would want to take down every one of his family members, friends, and colleagues if they were in on it too? The guy already has literally thousands of people who are angry and wealthy enough to have him killed; wouldn’t he want to spread that kind of love around? I mean, the guy is going to jail for 150 years, do you think that he really wants to perjure himself and tack on another 7 years? Let’s get real. If Bernie said that he acted alone, he acted alone. Besides the systematic destruction his lies wrought on several pension funds, insurance companies, banks, and private investors, has Bernie ever really lied about anything else? In fact, up until he ran out of money he never really lied. He always paid people exactly what he told them he was going to pay them. Now that is honesty we can all appreciate.
I think history will prove that Bernie Madoff was all alone at the top. I think history will prove that Bernie’s balls were so big that he couldn’t even sit down comfortably. I think history will show that this lone wolf was at the head of the pack. Bernie, I for one believe you.
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