In the middle of all of the recent news comes a story that is almost biblical in its nature. While it is unfair and unethical of me to make any more of this than what has been written, I must nevertheless note that about a week ago, Andrew Madoff the last surviving son of Bernard Madoff passed away of lymphoma. His older brother, Mark had died of suicide in 2010.
According to an Associated Press article (September 3, 2014), “Andrew Madoff dies of cancer in NYC,” Andrew Madoff was quoted in People magazine as saying the following:
“’One way to think of this is the scandal and everything that happened killed my brother very quickly and it’s killing me slowly.”
It is impossible to calculate the effect of the weight of Bernard Madoff’s scheme on his family. However, as the article goes on to say:
“The death came as authorities continue to investigate what role, if any, close family members and others linked to the Madoff business had in the fraud. Sentencing’s are scheduled in several weeks for five former high-level Madoff firm employees convicted of helping carry out the fraud by conspiring to defraud clients and falsifying books and records.”
Despite the family denying it had anything to do with the “dark side” of the organization, and that they were merely traders, those prosecuting the case have a different opinion:
“’This summer, a court-appointed trustee who has recovered more than half the nearly $20 billion that thousands of people had invested with Madoff filed a lawsuit claiming that Madoff’s sons used his business as their “’personal cookie jar,’” accepting sham loans, fictitious trades and deferred compensation. It accused them of knowing about the fraud and trying to cover it up by deleting emails during a Securities and Exchange Commission probe.’”
In other words, the sons were deeply involved in the scam and knew what they were doing.
However, lawyers for the family adamantly deny the sons had any connection to the sins of the father. In fact, Andrew was always seen as being upfront and outspoken with the media that he had nothing to do with it. In fact, it even appears as though the sons were instructed by the father to throw him under the bus.
The article quoted from a 2011 book about the scheme: Truth and Consequences: Life Inside the Madoff Family:
“I would love to say that Mark and I were waving the flags of justice in the air, but the bottom line is that we were absolutely terrified. We knew that what we were doing was going to send our father to jail, and the feeling was awful — absolutely awful.”
Where is the truth?
We may never know the truth. The sons have taken what they knew – or didn’t know – to their graves. Bernard Madoff, serving his 150 year sentence will never reveal more than what he has revealed. He must live with the tragedy he created.
Was the Ponzi scheme a “cookie jar” for the boys or were they so focused on their side of the business that they had no idea? We will be speculating on those points for years.
What is clear to me is that when someone commits an ethical crime, it comes back to affect everyone in the family as well as other relatives, friends and associates. Bernie Madoff didn’t just ruin his life, but many more.
Tragic indeed. It is said that one prisoner directly affects the lives of at least 38 other people. While it may not be “ethical” to judge another person, clearly the already public numbers show that Bernie Madoff far exceeded that statistic. If there was ever evidence that there are things far worse than death, if he has even a remnant of a conscience we know that Bernie Madoff is a living example of what that must be.