After years of silence, Bernie Madoff has been giving a very few select interviews the last couple months. We've learned that he thinks the banks were complicit with his massive Ponzi scheme, he feels terrible about what he's done to his family, and he's not quite sure if he's a sociopath or not. In a brand new, intense interview with the Financial Times, Madoff retold the whole twisted story of his rise and fall in the money world, and also claimed to possibly have a new job opportunity: developing ethics courses for some of the elite businesses schools in the country.
After setting "ground rules" for the interview, Madoff said he took complete responsibility for his actions, and begins telling his tale. Financial Times writes that it's a particularly well rehearsed one: "In the flesh, Madoff spins a credible tale of how a renegade entrepreneur conquered Wall Street and was drawn into crime by personalities and forces he could not control. It sounds almost convincing." Among the stranger details to emerge from the interview: Madoff has become a big fan of Danielle Steele novels, he "blinks intensely and often" like a poker tell, and several business schools, including Harvard and Northwestern, have allegedly approached him, and asked him to work on ethics courses. A spokesman for Harvard told the News that "it seems unlikely" Madoff meant the institution had reached out to him.
With all the intricate details of his financial scheme, the whole sprawling article is worth a read-through. Madoff also addresses the Mets' involvement in his scheme, and said the Wilpons had no idea what was going on. “They were totally unsophisticated. Their mistake was over-extending themselves with the team, with that leverage,” Madoff said. He also said that individuals should not be pursued by Irving Picard, the trustee who is representing a group of Madoff victims, and is suing the Wilpons company Sterling Equities for $1 billion. “I do not think that Picard will be successful in clawing back money from individuals, including the Mets family. He shouldn’t. If they can claw money back from the average person who was involved, then who will ever invest in a hedge fund ever again? But the banks are different," Madoff said.
