Eideard

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Bernard Madoff is said to have told fellow inmates that he squirreled away a secret $9 billion which prosecutors do not know about from his $65 billion ponzi scheme fraud.

Madoff, who was jailed last year for 150 years after admitting to orchestrating the historic fraud, is reported to have channelled the funds to three individuals – whose identities remain unknown – shortly before he confessed to his crimes in December 2008. “I think it was personal friends,” one inmate is reported to have said.

The claims, made in the New York Post, are based on conversations with an inmate who spent time in prison with Madoff. It is the first time since Madoff’s crimes came to light some 19 months ago that there has been any formal suggestion – in spite of numerous rumours – that the former fund manager attempted to hide significant amounts of money from prosecutors and the police.

If true, it could prove to be a significant development for Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee charged with uncovering Madoff’s secret assets, who is now likely to want to interview Madoff to find out where the money is.

The fellow prisoner also claimed that Madoff told him that the only other person to know of the identities of the three is Frank DiPascali, his former right-hand man, though it is not clear whether he knew money had been passed to them.

Mr DiPascali has pleaded guilty to 10 separate counts relating to the Madoff fraud and is currently working with federal prosecutors from jail to help them widen the case.

Or someone has been watching too much television. Think this might be a promo for the next season of Damages, eh?

“Obviously, first of all, this conversation never took place … OK?”

So began a phone call in which convicted swindler Bernard Madoff told colleagues how to dance around questions from the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to an audio tape and transcript released Wednesday by the Massachusetts secretary of state’s office.

“You know, you don’t have to be too brilliant with these guys, because you don’t have to be,” Madoff said, referring to SEC investigators…

At one point, Madoff interrupted the conversation to take another phone call. He returned and said, “I’m sorry. If I get any more solicitations for charity, I’m going to kill myself…”

Madoff cautioned his Fairfield associates not to know too much about how he was handling investments.

“You don’t want to have that information because … the commission, when they ask questions, they try and draw out information,” Madoff said. “The less that you know how we execute … the better you are…”

In the phone conversation with Fairfield, Madoff said he called the shots at his company.

“I’m the only one that can make the decision. … I’m the only one that pulls the trigger.”

Madoff advised taking a casual approach in dealing with the SEC. He said, if asked, Fairfield executives should minimize the ties between the companies and not volunteer answers.

“They ask you a zillion different questions and we look at them sometimes and we laugh, and we say, ‘Are you guys writing a book?’”

Yes, the freedom of the marketplace under the leadership of libertarian loonies, conservative cockups, Republican disregulators.

Freedom to steal!

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Bernard Madoff has admitted that he cannot believe he got away with his $65bn fraud for so long, in his first interview since being jailed.

The disgraced financier chose to lift the lid on his crimes to lawyers who represent victims of his Ponzi scheme. According to San Francisco attorney Joseph Cotchett, Madoff was “very candid” and an “absolute gentleman” during their four-and-a-half hour meeting…

Madoff also admitted that “there were several times that I met with the SEC and thought ‘they got me’”…

It appears that Madoff was keen to speak to Cotchett to try to exonerate his wife. ABC News quoted Cotchett saying: “He cares about Ruth, but he doesn’t give a —- about his two sons, Mark and Andrew.”

Madoff is serving his sentence in the Butner Federal Prison, a medium-security facility in North Carolina.

Maybe if the SEC had investigators and administrators worth a fraction of their paychecks – maybe if they paid attention to their job description – he woudn’t have belief problems. He’d be serving the second decade of his sentence by now.