MADOFF

A penetrating account of the web of lies that won the late con man Bernie Madoff his billions.

The subtitle notwithstanding, words are likely to be forthcoming still about Madoff’s crimes. As Forbes contributing editor Behar notes, a court-appointed administrator is busy recovering the billions of dollars Madoff distributed in his massive Ponzi scheme, which robbed countless people, among them Elie Wiesel, Sandy Koufax, and Steven Spielberg. That so many of Madoff’s victims were Jewish was itself a swindle, for Madoff well knew that “Jews through the centuries…, due to persecutions in country after country, tend to trust fellow Jews more than others simply because they are Jewish.” For all that, Behar, who visited Madoff in prison and exchanged emails and phone calls over several years, has an odd sort of empathy with his subject. He notes that a couple of Mafia dons with actual blood on their hands who did time alongside Madoff earned lighter sentences, in part, it seems, because the judge who sentenced Madoff to 150 years in prison was determined that Madoff never see free daylight again. Empathy or no, Behar enumerates Madoff’s extensive lies, tracing his network of fraud far back in time and implicating a number of accomplices, noting that 13 associates and two external accountants received sentences as well. “It’s tempting and perhaps common sense to dismiss everything Bernie says as bullshit,” writes the author; in this, Madoff and Donald Trump are blood kin (Behar isn’t shy to venture into this territory). Of particular interest, apart from Behar’s deep dive into the mechanics of the scheme, is his complimentary account of how the Securities and Exchange Commission, always strapped for cash and hated by the free-marketeers of the GOP, managed to bring Madoff down.

A well-written, swift-moving story of true crime and punishment.