Bernie Madoff's 'scam of the century': Ten years later

Oh hard to believe but 10 years ago today Bernie Madoff well-known on Wall Street but hardly a household name anywhere else confessed to his sons that is 65 billion dollar fund was simply a giant Ponzi scheme to say the least it was the last thing the battered financial markets needed in the fall of 2008 and the ripple effect even to this day has been massive scott kohn let our coverage of the scam of the century back then and he is back now with a new series of reports about where we have been and also where we're headed it's god it's good to see you good to see you Brian Madoff sons famously turned their father into the feds almost right after he confessed and the next day Madoff confess to the FBI as well he is marking this 10th anniversary of the scandal quietly at the medium-security federal prison in Butner North Carolina where he turned 80 this spring now nine and a half years into a 150 year prison sentence it's where a few years ago I spent a surreal two hours with Madoff behind bars to hear Bernie Madoff tell it running a giant Ponzi scheme was stressful even before he got caught life in prison was kind of a respite it's kind of like being in the army he told me in 2013 only you're not worried about getting killed Madoff's lead defense attorney I released Sorkin is still in touch with his most famous client he's doing okay for 80 years old as a respect from the prison population and I think he's got that and it's you know it's prison but it's not the max but one person doesn't want to hear from Madoff mark'll it was Madoff s-- lead federal prosecutor I don't believe people who are pathological liars should be given a soapbox now in private practice lits office overlooks New York's lipstick building Madoff's former base of operations and for three years a federal crime scene I looked around the room and there were pictures of his boats on the wall and they were all named bull and I said what what is that thing over there and I saw that it was a sculpture of a wood screw and it all of a sudden hit me that here I was the perspective investor surrounded by bull and getting screwed and but I didn't know it we have a lot more from Mark litt who's never talked about the case until now also like Sorkin and more about my time with Bernie Madoff and of course we'll hear from the victims and we'll look into where the next Madoff may be hiding it is all on a special special American greed podcast series starts today Madoff ten years later you can subscribe an ample podcast or wherever you get your podcast Brian you've talked to the man you've talked to Bernie Madoff yeah what's he like in person you know he was surprisingly regular when I when I finally met him and I had seen him in all the court appearances I was about 15 feet away from him sitting in the jury box the day that he was sentenced to 150 years you meet him in person and he is not a charismatic guy I think that the allure of bernie madoff came from the money the allegedly purportedly consistent returns that he offered even when the markets were down people were drawn to him that way but it was surprising to me how how just normal he seemed it was almost that in a way was really unsettling and when you talked to a guy like lit what was their most surprising thing that they found I mean I guess it was the the macro scott of course was that this could go on for so long with nobody even employees of the company not realizing that it was fake what other surprises did they find well it was interesting for a prosecutor like Mark litt who is used to building a case toward an indictment over a period of years this was different this this started out with being told that there was a confession and then going in and trying to trying to sort it all out and in the space of a very short period of time had to come up with a criminal complaint that would would last that would stick through all of these years both in terms of forfeiture in terms of I mean they didn't know at the time whether Madoff was going to immediately plead guilty it took him three months which is relatively short but it was it was sort of a almost like a crash course here of of trying to put this together in a way that would would serve the victim and serve justice it's probably a dumb question Scott I mean you and I we work in TV we say stuff we write stuff and it goes on TV and we know that it works what if somebody was doing stuff here that never went anywhere and it just did it like kind of a fake job for years what is what is it what are the employee are we supposed to believe the employees literally that work there was a lot of employees had zero idea that nothing they were doing was real well that happened it happens well first of all 15 people have either pleaded guilty or been convicted in in relation to this so you can't say that the employees weren't involved did they know that the exact nature of the fraud all indications are no nobody was charged with that but they were charged and convicted in most cases of falsifying records of doing things that they probably should have known something was going on but remember a lot of the people that worked for Bernie Madoff were not people that were recruited from other Wall Street firms they were people that that grew up within the business that that that came came out of high school or a little bit of college there's five madoff employees who were convicted were not people that were Wall Street pros they were people that were taught by Madoff and if you believe that nobody else was was complicit in the fraud in terms of how are we gonna how are we gonna make these trades fictitious over the space of so many years that's how you you

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Keywords: Worldwide Exchange, CNBC, business news, finance stock, stock market, news channel, news station, breaking news, us news, world news, cable, cable news, finance news, money, money tips, financial news, stock market news, stocks, Bernie Madoff, bernard madoff 2018, madoff victim fund, how much money did bernie madoff make, ponzi scheme, madoff movie, madoff ponzi scheme, madoff sons

Id: KlX85hEAevU

Length: 6min 4sec (364 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 10 2018