Mark Madoff Suicide Leaves Unanswered Questions
Mark Madoff was found dangling from a black dog leash in his Manhattan apartment living room, while his 2-year-old son was found asleep in an adjoining bedroom. The 46 year old son of a thief, in his final act of cowardice. emailed his wife, in Florida with their older child.
What a delightful family this is.
Two Years Ago, when the Madoff arrest first exploded, the story smelled funny. How could a 70 year old run a $50 billion Ponzi scheme by his lonesome?
According to the trustee recovering assets for Madoff’s “investors,” Mark Madoff, director of listed trading for his fathers brokerage firm (technically separate from the Ponzi investors) was paid $29.3 million from 2001 to 2008. Not only that, the trustee claims he improperly grabbed another $66.8 million for himself, his family and entities on his behalf. And in case that wasn’t enough, Mark Madoff was also accused of falsifying transactions to withdraw $18.1 million from his account by the trustee.
If those numbers are accurate, it raises a question: What was Mark Madoff doing that was worth $16,314,286 dollars per year over that seven year period? It is hard for me to fathom that anything associated with that firm could have led to that sort of annual compensation — at least, in a traditional compensation structure.
Was this merely deserved compensation for a job done well? An example of the family;s generosity to its own? Hush money?
I have no idea.
If the trusteee’s allegations of compensation are true, it sure seems like an awfully big comp package. The specifics of his compensation structure as an employee of his father’s firm strongly imply that the apple does not fall far from the tree — i.e., that even if he wasn’t a thief, like his old man, the deceased certainly was not ashamed to grab a huge pile of cash, deserved or not.
I have not delved to deeply into this sordid mess for some time, as everything associated with this clan is nauseating. Today’s announcement simply was the last straw.
One would imagine that any innocent person, with 2 children in this marriage (more from a previous one), would want to clear their name, if only for the sake of their innocent kids. Apparently not . . .
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December 11th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
One less Madoff. Good riddance.
December 11th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
The first wife was the smart one — she got away from the family, probably got some cash plus child support.
December 11th, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Mark was a real SOB (Son Of Bernie!)
December 11th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Honey, I Shirked the Kids
Sad all around.
December 11th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
probably good manners to wait 24 hours for this kind of post, , if only for the sake of their innocent kids.
~~~
BR: What would waiting 24 hours accomplish?
December 11th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
While normally I love 99% of the posts BR puts on here, its too soon, too sordid, and too sad to discuss the suicide of a father with a small child in the next room. We don’t know the personal lives of these people. While suicide is always a cowardly move, again, if we haven’t been in that person’s shoes, we don’t know what we are capable of doing in those same circumstances.
December 11th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
Sucks for the kids as they age, Innocent men don’t usually hang themselves. Anyone watching the other one?
December 11th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
Bad taste Barry,
Suicide is rarely a rational act (some might say it’s rational to jump on a hand-grenade to save your buddies), but in this case it was most likely irrational based on intense, two year chronic stress. You say the compensation was out of line, ok, fair. But you also say you don’t know if he was involved in the ponzi scheme. So why call it cowardice? Low blow. Give the family a break. (And come to mention it, we are not the Roman Empire where they killed a mans family for his crimes.) Let the FBI do their job first,
~i
December 11th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
can’t take claim to this creative comment i just heard: ‘good noose’…….
December 11th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Hhmmmm, what really sucks is that there kids don’t have to go back and spend the rest of there lives on the streets of where-it-aint-good, with less than a dollar bill in their hands. But no! that aint the case they will still be riding high in “richland!” Really we should create a society where things get turned-over like that! It happens out in nature, doesn’t it? And not only to the ones that cheat.
December 11th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
“even if he wasn’t a thief, [he] certainly was not ashamed to grab a huge pile of cash, deserved or not.”
To those of us on the outside, that statement is true of many in the financial industry, among others.
Innocent men often hang themselves. It’s more driven by despair, and guilt often has nothing to do with that. It’s a very dark place that makes no sense to the rest of us.
December 11th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
I am shocked by your “What a delightful family this is.”
Marc Madoff had a two year old son.
December 11th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
He had a two year old son, plus an older son with this wife. His prior marriage had 2 or 3 kids as well
The family I was referencing was Bernies, not mark Madoffs
December 11th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
Your post is low class Barry. The guy is dead, his (little) kids have no father, etc. — what else would you like?
December 11th, 2010 at 8:59 pm
What else? I would have preferred him to man up — given the extent of his father’s crime, and how much he personally benefitted from it, he should have dedicated the rest of his life to doing whatever possible to make up for the old man’s fraud.
He lived a life of luxury for 44 years due to his Bernie Madoff’s fraud. Doing whatever was possible to atone for that should have been his life’s work. Instead he took the easy way out and committed suicide.
Try to find some positive contribution to make in light of what took place. I would like to think that anyone who found themselves in such horrific circumstances would try to give their life some meaning (even if your father is one of history’s biggest thieves)
December 11th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
Why the dog leash?
I mean, that sounds like something an angry invester may have deemed sufficient for the job.
He emailed his wife to say what?
I’m not surprised that something smells fishy about the incident. Am surprised it was deemed a suicide so quickly..
December 11th, 2010 at 9:47 pm
My condolences go out to his family. No one deserves to lose a loved one. No one.
Having said that, I sit here wondering if this is just the first of many similar incidents to follow as 2011 unwinds.
With the SEC finally (after years of finance industry abuse) growing a pair and looking, with the FBI, more deeply into Wall Street than ever before, what will be the end results on those investigations?
December 11th, 2010 at 10:09 pm
“I’m not surprised that something smells fishy about the incident. Am surprised it was deemed a suicide so quickly”
Well, dead men don’t talk. Sounds like Don Corleone boys were involve in this.
December 11th, 2010 at 10:09 pm
Liberal application of Occams razor would suggest it’s probably just karma catching-up with him. Then again, when the Russian mafia you stiffed by getting busted shows-up and offers you a choice of first order conditions consisting of: “swing from the dog leash or the whole family gets it”, then maybe the dog leash starts to look like utility maximization. And maybe I watch too many movies.
December 11th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
@louis – Innocent men don’t usually hang themselves.
Do you have data to back up that assertion?
December 11th, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Barry , I know you have a very advanced vocabulary so i would expect you to comment with humble pie.We all know they are guilty and they are paying the price of the terrible act they did.If you have children you would look at the BIG picture.
December 11th, 2010 at 10:36 pm
It is also interesting the suit Picard filed against the Bank Medici and Sonja Kohn of Austria. The amount here is by far the largest of the suits filed, and suggests who the real co-conspirators were. 16.9 billion is by far the largest amount. Perhaps the size of this suit suggests that the sons were not big players in the conspiracy, compared to other folks. JPMorgan got sued for 1 billion as a aider of the scheme. As usual it takes several years for the strings to be followed and the real story to unfold.
All in all its likley that outsiders were bigger players in the scheme than the sons, as the sons could likley not add that much value in terms of snaring new investors.
December 11th, 2010 at 11:37 pm
One would imagine that any innocent person, with 2 children in this marriage (more from a previous one), would want to clear their name, if only for the sake of their innocent kids. Apparently not . . .
Damn straight
And if he was guilty and feared the law was closing in there are far worse titles than “fugitive financier”.
Suicide is often selfish.
December 12th, 2010 at 2:13 am
And what if he was innocent, Barry?
You seem sure enough of his guilt (based on no evidence at all) to revel in a man’s suicide. And if he wasn’t complicit in his father’s crimes, then at least he was guilty of being overpaid, unlike anyone else on Wall Street. What the Madoff affair has revealed is that there is no greater tragedy in American life than the theft of money. I can recall no murder in recent history that elicited this much bloodlust. Maybe you can find something else to be gleeful about this holiday season, Barry.
~~~
BR: As I noted above, I have no idea if he is guilty or not.
But what we do know is that when confronted with accusations of complicity with his father’s massive fraud, he took a coward’s way out.
December 12th, 2010 at 2:39 am
I’m going to get in trouble for this… But…There is a saying, DYODD. Do your own due diligence. People with more than their fair share of money should probably try to shed their sense of entitlement and not fall for what appears to be the best thing since sliced bread perhaps especially if it’s run by one of those seated at the high table of money. In this case the scheme was an out and out ponzi scheme in the very traditional sense but in the world of finance it seems to me variegated forms of these schemes proliferate. Perhaps the largest of which is being conducted by the highest priest of them all, the domed and bearded one of maiden lane. Will HE end up being as reviled before all is said and done? Probably not since we seem to forgive these things easily when they occur on a truly magnificent scale.
December 12th, 2010 at 3:13 am
Geez I really hate it for the kids. I’ve had a couple friends whose fathers did that and it really scarred them. There’s always a chance to turn your life around and more and more you hear of this choice being made due to legal, job or money problems. I just can’t respect guys who take this way out. Man up!
December 12th, 2010 at 3:55 am
I am suprised at the Madoff family defenders. Fuck ‘em all, they should all drop dead after what they did.
Whether son knew or didn’t know is almost irrelevant. The crimes of the sociopathic father were so enormous they painted an tainted the entire family.
December 12th, 2010 at 5:15 am
I am not a doctor or a lawyer but the decision to announce this death as suicide seems premature and presumptuous to me.
In a high profile case such as this I should have thought the correct procedure would have been for the NYPD to only report the CIRCUMSTANCES in which the body was found. It would then be the responsibility of a pathologist to establish the CAUSE of death, who should in turn report his findings to a coroner whose responsibility it would be to correlate all the evidence surrounding the case in order to establish whether the death was an accident, an act of foul play, or self inflicted.
December 12th, 2010 at 6:10 am
Yes, a suicide of a father of two small kids is a tragedy — but put this into context: The Father committed massive, horrific crimes. He stole from charities, from schools, from people who were sick and dying, and the elderly.
The old man was a heinous monster who ruined 1000s and 1000s of lives. This is merely one more of them.
December 12th, 2010 at 6:37 am
If unjustified compensation was a crime, most of the CEOs on Wall street would be in jail along with select CEOs from a wide variety of other industries. Not only CEOs but most Wall Street traders, hedge fund managers and throw in most sport stars. In actors and sports stars defense they don’t control the mechanism for paying themselves like CEOs do.
A few good reads on this subject:
-Battle for the Soul of Capitalism by John Bogle of Vanguard fame
-Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis
An extreme example is Fuld of Lehman. The man was paid several hundred million over six years or so as he drove his company right into the ground.
Theft/fraud maybe reason for jail, excess compensation isn’t. How else do you think the top 1% can gain increasing control of the economy. Let’s get real here.
~~~
BR: I would add Lowenstein’s Origins of the Crash to the oeuvre — and he was referencing the 2000 collapse.
December 12th, 2010 at 7:27 am
“What was Mark Madoff doing that was worth $16,314,286 dollars per year over that seven year period?”
What could ANYONE be doing that is worth $16,314,286 dollars per year over that same seven year period (or ay seven year period, in relative dollars)?
Honestly. Whatever happened to the idea that greed is a bad thing?
How can we possibly have intractable public deficits when people are making this much money? How can our infrastructure be crumbling, our workforce idled, and our banks and Treasury be failing, with people hoarding more cash (and from questionably legal and/or blatantly illegal sources) than they can ever spend?
The Madoff family story is poetic justice on a Shakespearean tragedy scale. I’d probably feel worse for them, if I wasn’t so busy trying to protect my freekin’ nut from their ilk.
December 12th, 2010 at 8:13 am
Personally, I don’t even think suicide is an “out” for him (or anyone). As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “I don’t think it would be any more unusual for me to show up in another life as it was for me to show up in this one.” He’s going to be meeting all those he affected at some point and he’s going to feel everything they felt. Ultimate Justice, and inescapable.
December 12th, 2010 at 8:15 am
I am sending out over 100 MORE black dog leashes with directions to other assholes like theMadoff family in government , wallstreet, and a few in T.V media..
least i could do
December 12th, 2010 at 9:20 am
“He lived a life of luxury for 44 years due to his Bernie Madoff’s fraud. Doing whatever was possible to atone for that should have been his life’s work. Instead he took the easy way out and committed suicide.”
Sure. And everyone in the real estate industry connected with the giant Ponzi scheme that was ARMs to the masses should devote their lives to the homeless or whatever. Everyone working the economic booms/busts of the last 30 years should be tithing a paltry 10% of their salary to the people spit out the bottom (would that include most of you?). And why aren’t there just 100 wealthy businessmen in the whole country done presiding over the gutting of their industries, who can just settle for what they’ve got and work for free running the mega-charities that now pay high 6- or 7- figure salaries out of donations from people earning mid 5-figures?
Madoff was surrounded by Madoffs, and did what his world said was right and good. At least give the guy credit that he ultimately saw the depravity of his life, even if he couldn’t see a way out. The people holding unemployment benefits hostage at the start of winter to grab a few more percent off the top of their income will likely never be so advanced.
~~~
BR: I assume you recognize the difference between the bad investment decisions some (many) made, and outright theft ?
December 12th, 2010 at 9:31 am
“BR: What else? I would have preferred him to man up — given the extent of his father’s crime, and how much he personally benefitted from it, he should have dedicated the rest of his life to doing whatever possible to make up for the old man’s fraud.
He lived a life of luxury for 44 years due to his Bernie Madoff’s fraud. Doing whatever was possible to atone for that should have been his life’s work. Instead he took the easy way out and committed suicide.
Try to find some positive contribution to make in light of what took place. I would like to think that anyone who found themselves in such horrific circumstances would try to give their life some meaning (even if your father is one of history’s biggest thieves)”
x2
~~
though, in regard to the QOTD: “The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.” —John Maynard Keynes
Given that BenBer + the FedRes, are, still, in full swing, I’m surprised that Madoff( y familia) draws so much ire..
December 12th, 2010 at 9:34 am
The act of hanging yourself is tragic, but the crimes this family committed are beyond repair. Lives have been taken, albeit not directly, retirements lost, human loss on a major scale. Madoff, his sons, wife, and others were all part of this operation. The the Madoff clan get what it deserves period. That includes the kids!
December 12th, 2010 at 9:50 am
How can we possibly have intractable public deficits when people are making this much money?
Not to mention accept 1 in 7 American are now on food stamps.
We would do better paying attention to a much more worthy man named Bernie.
http://cs.pn/f50bTJ
December 12th, 2010 at 9:53 am
“The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children.” – Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”
December 12th, 2010 at 10:04 am
Don’t get me wrong I like reading this blog. It’s a source of education for me. Especially Barry’s take on things from a legal prospective. We don’t seem to have anything like as good a comparative here in the UK.
However to follow on from my previous post I think it is too early to be judgemental.
Here in the UK. A Coroner the equivalent of New York’s Chief Medical Examiner has several options open to him when recording the cause of death even though all the evidence points to the conclusion that the deceased took his own life. e.g. Premeditated suicide, Suicide whilst the balance of the mind was disturbed, Misadventure, Accidental death, or an open verdict.
We don’t know the level of alcohol or drugs that was in the deceased bloodstream, or exactly what pressures he was under. i.e. It was him was it not who turned his father in? He could have had knowledge that would have been incriminating to many more. Did others take steps to silence him? Were the deceased actions rational concerning the events that occurred immediately prior to his death? Had he talked of suicide with other family members? What do the FBI and the CIA know that so far they have not disclosed? As the headline denotes there are many questions to be answered before this case can be closed.
December 12th, 2010 at 10:12 am
Anyone want one of Madoff’s boats? A few are still up for auction
http://www.yachtauctions.com/madoff/
December 12th, 2010 at 10:44 am
I marvel at how everyone accepts to notion that this was a suicide. Such events, driven by grief and an inability to deal with their circumstances, tend to have suicide notes explaining their actions or blaming others. That his 2-year-old son was in the next room seems pretty well designed to send a message to other Madoff family members.
But the only one likely to know the useful info (where is the money?) is Bernie himself, and he surely knows that if he talks, that will be his last act. Plus, he seems not to be a particularly caring person, so this kind of persuasion would not work right away, if ever. Assuming that it was not a suicide.
There has been speculation about mob money in Madoff’s clutches for some time now, and this only adds fuel to that speculation. If will be interesting to see if Mark had any alcohol or drugs in his system, or whether he was clear-headed when this happened, no matter whose hand it was by and for whatever reason.
And it doesn’t have to be the mob that would perpetrate such an action, there is a long, long line of people who are getting precious little recompense (with the attorney responsible for distributing recovered funds collecting most of the cash flow), and some of them would doubtlessly cheerfully snuff every member of the Madoff clan.
But as I say, we cannot know what occurred here, only that Madoff’s son is dead. The security precautions taken by the remaining family members would be interesting to observe.
December 12th, 2010 at 11:12 am
In this bizarre saga, murder could be as likely as suicide. Given the circumstances, I agree, what happened to the normal procedure of waiting until the ME and investigations are complete to declare this a suicide, no matter how obvious it may have looked.
How big was that dog?
December 12th, 2010 at 11:13 am
If someone steal one of Barry’s cool rides and sell it to me for a great low price, then the police will take that ride back from me (without compensation) and maybe even charge me. This guy got huge sums of stolen money from his daddy, should all that money not have been returned to its rightful owners?
This family, including the children, have lived and will continue to live a very comfortable lifestyle on money stolen from other people. I feel sorry for their loss, but will not lose much sleep over it. Even the kids are a lot better off than most kids whose dad commit this kind of cowardice act. On the other hand I do not feel anger against the kids or even the wife who probably had no idea that all this wealth came from unlawful crime rather than the legal everyday robbing activities of a Wall Street investor.
December 12th, 2010 at 11:32 am
The Madoffs are the low classers, why didn’t this guy make sure his son was elsewhere before offing himself? Too self absorbed to give his kid any thought or consideration.
December 12th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Here’s the “Damages” version: Sonja Kohn’s Russian mafia buddies were worried Marc would reveal where the money really went, so they waited to see if Picard would sue, and when he did they told MM that if he didn’t kill himself his wife and kids would be harmed.
December 12th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Logically speaking, suicide can never be a “cowardly” way out of any bad situation because you can’t benefit from the escape of that situation because your, well, dead. At best it was an irrational, emotional decision.
Philosophy talk has an excellent show on suicide: http://www.philosophytalk.org/pastShows/Suicide.html
December 12th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Also, we should not hold the son responsible for the father’s crimes unless it is proven in a court of law he participated.
And, if the son benefited financially, but didn’t know the money was obtained illegally, that does not make him a bad guy either.
Let the SEC and the FBI finish their investigations first.
December 12th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
What about this thief:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_R._Irani
There are many others that are running Madoff Schemes and are a threat to the operation they lead if not duly compensated.
December 12th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Many of General Custer’s men committed suicide rather than be captured by the Indigenous defenders of their ancestral lands. Perhaps he was reminded in no uncertain terms that the end was very near for all who could tell tales. A dog leash is way too poetic for the simple act; he was his father’s puppy and had he been a free man and left his gilded cage he could walk today as free as any citizen willing to be creative in this great country, America. The only thing we know for sure is that Mark Madoff is as dead as Jacob Marley so the tale unfolds; and as Santo Trafficante wisely observed about JFK’s bad day, “Look to the survivors”.
December 12th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
@louis – Innocent men don’t usually hang themselves.
Do you have data to back up that assertion?
Think of my comment in the context of an ongoing investigation.
I do not have data at this time just a personal opinion. Innocent men do hang themselves, usually in their prison cells
December 12th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
Madoff is in jail and is family (and chosen agents) are in limbo or hell. Hopefully the trustee will recover as mush as possible from those who received illgotten gains and from the co-conspiritors recently named in lawsuits.
Unfortunely there is a whole mass of ponzi schemers, purveyors of the TBTF, whom are comfortably nesting in their opulence, rolling in stolen money and protected by the very system they created.
Madoff may have destroyed 1000′s of lives that he touched with his select and exclusive club,
but more tragically 1,000,000′s of hard working people have had their lives destroyed by a ponzi system designed to do the same as Madoff called the Federal Reserve (aka Cartel of private bankers) who continue to amass wealth by privatizing profits and socializing loses. It appears that the only thing that put Madoff in jail was his inabiility to get a gov’t bailout.~~~
BR: Really? Even suicide is an excuse to bash the Fed?
December 12th, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Feel badly for his kids, but other than that (which is a big consideration, no doubt), this is mostly poetic justice. Others who are engaging in mostly questionable deeds to “earn” their millions and billions should take note of this little fable and maybe pause before deciding to move forward with their questionable activities.
December 12th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
I tend to agree, constantnormal. Seems very curious to me. The fact that most people aren’t even questioning this more is even more curious. I would venture to guess that may even see more curious “suicides” as this mess continues to unfold.
December 12th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
WARNING: DON’T CLICK ON THE LINK POSTED BY CAPTAIN JACK. MY INTERNET SECURITY INFORMS ME IT IS A VIRUS!!!
~~~
BR: I just went there, its a boat auction site — yachtauctions.com — its perfectly valid
Live Auction 11/17/09 featuring Bernie Madoff’s Yachts
December 12th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Well, boo hoo hoo. Fuck the entire Madoff family, right along with Mark Madoff’s wife,kids and brother. These parasites are living (hopefullly, not to long) quite well at the expense of thousands of shattered lives.
Send dog leashes and detailed instructions to each and every one of them.
As for the other venal, corrupt bastards on “The Street” and in government, let’s help them and their families to the next life.
December 12th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Dear Barry
Do we really have to drag the kids into this? Just to get a few more readers (like me maybe)? I enjoyed your postings very much so far but take them with a moral distance going forward.
A probably too emotinal father(having a child myselve and having seen what a suicide can do to them).
Think about it.
December 12th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Dunno Barry,
It could be a simple as guilt, he did burn almost all his friends.
My dad did himself in when I was 19. After all the shit the woman on my birth certificate pulled on him, my father just gave up on life. I was put on the street at 16 and consider myself pretty tough, but after watching my decades of hard work get burned up on HiFi’s alter has taken a toll on me.
After pulling myself off the mat too many times to count, you can get pretty tired of a country who’s cancer ridden body politic has only one sole remaining function…to supply it’s malignant cells ever more nutrient.
December 12th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
@ s Brennan: Correct. Totally. Thanks for sharing.
My son actually flushed lots and lots of my money (Clifford Trust) down the toilet because he was so much smarter than me (Dotcom bubble), ignoring my advice.
I told him to sell (Lucent $80, JDS whatever) Where are they now. He still thinks his Dad is some kind of stupid. I guess he’s right.
December 12th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
BR., I’ve been reading your blog for over 2 years and I have a lot of respect for what you write here. I haven’t commented until now, but I did so in part because I think this post is in bad taste (I agree with the other people who commented here and said you should have left the kids out of it).
I also posted because of your moralizing of the situation, (calling for Madoff to have spent the rest of his life atoning etc) and I am having a hard time putting this thought it into words, but somehow I feel that if you had testified before congress during the financial crisis when invited to do so (a rare opportunity for most), and tried to help your country, spoken about the corruption on Wall Street and in Congress, and called for the atonement of all of those at the center of the financial crisis, then I’d have given you the leeway to speak on this sensitive matter of death and family, because I’d know you weren’t just another wealthy bystander who took his piece from a corrupt system and watched the house of cards fall (all the while in your case calling out the system for its’ baseness on a blog and CNBC).
~~~
BR: Geez, this Congressional nonsense again?
For the record: I was called to testify on a few days notice, but was committed to a prior engagement that could not be broken. I could not have gone even if I wanted to (which I assure you, I did not).
December 12th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
Barry, did you ever have the pleasure of meeting Mark Madoff? Smart, humble, kind, curious and generous. A finer man you would have difficulty finding. To know him is to know this to be true.
Bernie sucked a lot of people in with his Charisma, his son Mark included. We can only imagine the embarrassment and shame Mark lived with every day. Mark is another unfortunate Bernie Madoff victim, not some coward who took the easy way out.
-Craig
December 12th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
The children? Just WTF is wrong with you assholes?
Ritholtz wasn’t the one who hung himself with his 2 year old in the next room — that was Mark Madoff, that paragon of virtue lauded by Craig S above
What BR did was report exactly what every single media outlet — including the WSJ, NYT, Bloomberg — mentioned: That this asshole hung himself while leaving a 2 year old sleeping in bed. Why was it mentioned by everyone? Because it revealed what a despicable person he was,
Stop defending this creepy sleazoid of a human being and his entire fucked up family. You bring that Madoff taint onto yourselves when you do.
Over and out
December 12th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
I read Harry Markopolos’s book on Madoff and the SEC. “No One Would Listen” I think was the title. Near the end of the book, he described a meeting that a prospective investor had with Madoff. After they had met, two younger guys barely caught the elevator, and while in the elevator, the two younger guys started yapping about how the fund was doing…. “great.” Yadda yadda.
So the propective investor asked if they worked with Madoff and they said, yeah, he’s our Dad.
The prospective investor thought it was all staged and decided not to invest.
There’s no way Madoff’s sons did not know. That’s like believing Cam Newton not to have known.
December 12th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
The only thing that’s sad here is that the people he screwed didn’t get to string him up themselves. Preferably in front of his kids.
December 12th, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Is anyone questioning the dog?
December 13th, 2010 at 1:48 am
The whole sordid mess is tragically predictable when social mores embody the “Greed is Good” ethos. Since the onslaught of the S&L Crisis in the 80′s, we’ve seen a veritable parade of progressively worse white collar crooks visit untold suffering on honest, working Americans.
It’s beyond time for our justice system to aggressively pursue and incarcerate these financial terrorists. I wonder what’s the proper punishment for participants who have destroyed the life options of an elderly husband and wife; and seriously impacted their children and grand-children?! All I can say is that with the de-fanging from deregulation, it’s not nearly harsh enough to discourage more of this conduct. One can only hope that will change.
December 13th, 2010 at 4:30 am
The Wall Street Journal isn’t pussyfooting around with this headline:
But what about the children . . . ?
December 13th, 2010 at 6:42 am
CNBC just announced that Mark Madoff put into one of his father’s accounts $750,000 and took out $18.1 million dollars.
Craig, for some reason, I don’t think I will have much difficulty finding “finer man”
December 13th, 2010 at 7:24 am
The simple point of Moral Authority is that when any person makes way beaucoup bucks in a family business, while being the head of listed trading for years, and that person can claim not to know there was no meat in the sandwich….sold to you but real people ain’t buying. The profound lack of curiosity does not pass Go. If nothing else, the 2-year-old has a better chance finding a morally-honest parent out of all this. If they allow Bernie to attend the funeral, can OBL be resurrected to attend as well?
December 13th, 2010 at 8:21 am
Some of the folks that swim in these outrageous amounts of wealth are detached from the values and ethics the rest of the country has to live by – rules are for the little people. Elitism, privilege, ostentatious materialism are the norm. When your entire identity is defined by what you own rather than what you do with your gifts then I imagine any hint of some downward mobility would be devastating.
The selfishness necessary to feel entitled and deserving of that sort of obscene lifestyle is the same selfishness that allows for the total abandonment of a child while hanging yourself in the next room.
December 13th, 2010 at 9:38 am
There used to be a saying in this society, “there but for the grace 0f God, go I. It’s funny how when an individual does something wrong, like Madoff, he get scorn heaped upon them. But when groups of people do the same damn thing or worse, nothing happens. You may not be guilty Barry, but you’re
involved in a corrupt culture, and no one has been held accountable.
December 13th, 2010 at 10:14 am
Mark Madoff may have killed himself to avoid all this Christmas music.
http://twitter.com/ReformedBroker/status/14097942205956096
December 13th, 2010 at 11:37 am
Papa was a con artist
And the apple didn’t fall far from the tree
Sonny upped and hung himself
Such a tragedy
December 13th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
I’m just going to add that when Ken Lay used potassium chloride to induce a heart attack nobody said shit about him being a coward, they just had an immediate cremation and allowed his family to keep his ill gotten fortune.
Ken was not just the “fountain head” of corruption, but a convicted criminal, who,because he was under appeal at the time had his conviction thrown out…far worse.
December 14th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
interesting how some readers try to innocent mark.
whether he kills himself or not is irrelevant,
the scumbag took $18m/yr for what exactly ?
now,
where are the managers of fairfield and kingate ?
December 16th, 2010 at 11:11 pm
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/mark-madoffs-name-became-too-big-a-burden/
evidently (comes from the word EVIDENCE), he was a good guy
December 16th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/mark-madoffs-name-became-too-big-a-burden/
evidently (and that word comes from EVIDENCE) he was a good guy.