Okay, this is a bit controversial, I’m sure, but let’s look at the facts:
- There was a huge amount of paper generated in support of these schemes. This is an inordinate amount of work for a 70+ year old man to do. It requires technical know-how and all sorts of scale.
- Mr. Madoff confessed to his two sons.
- We all know about Madoff’s statements regarding regulators, and how fraud would be detected.
- This odd addition of Mr. Madoff’s niece marrying an S.E.C. agent into the facts, included in the S.E.C.’s own mea culpa.
Now, stop thinking like a rational person watching an elderly man confess. Mr. Madoff, if he was so deceitful this entire time, shouldn’t be taken at face value when it comes to his confession.
Think like this is a Law and Order episode. This is the first 5 minutes of the episode and the police have gotten a confession. Well, that means only one thing: the suspect will change to whomever the confession takes the heat off of. In this case, his sons. Is it more likely that his sons were running a scheme, with confidants, and tearfully confessed to their father? I don’t know. What I do know, however, is that a devoted father would probably protect his sons blindly.
Couple this plausible scenario with the aforementioned ridiculous amount of work it takes to gimmick up the confirms and whatnot that were used to support the returns claimed by the firm, and those documents were extensive (see link above), and you seem to have a more reasonable explanation. Is it surprising the S.E.C. isn’t finding any evidence the children were involved? Uhhhh… they missed the entire thing to begin with, so no.
