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The basics have been covered. The article could use some filling out. --John Nagle (talk) 17:23, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ponzi scheme
Civil suits had been filed by the SEC alleging that he extracted about half a billion from the Madoff scheme, and he was under criminal investigation, but he died at age 84 before being brought to justice.[1]. What do we do? John Nagle (talk) 04:54, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There were never any criminal charges filed against him, it is factually wrong to state that he was a criminal. It was never shown in criminal or civil proceedings (or even in published documents) that he even had knowledge of the scheme, and the fact that all his own money was incorporated in the same accounts that got wiped out would lend some credibility to his claim. Yes, his money came from the scheme, in the sense that he got paid fees for managing people's money, and yes we might suspect or wonder if it was possible he could have been innocent, but the facts remain facts. In terms of "extracting money", that is a different line of reasoning. Anybody who was duped by the scheme but who also took what they thought was their money out would be subject to "claw back" because even though they were duped, there was no profit so they were entitled to no profit. This would also apply to Chais, he extracted money and it would be subject to claw back, but that is not part of the crime. Let me lay out a hypothetical scenario (which does not belong in an encyclopedia) to give an alternate explanation that may satisfy your craving for an explanation: perhaps he thought that Madoff was cheating, but that the cheating was insider trading or front running, not a Ponzi. Maybe he had loose morals or believed that Wall Street was rigged, so he rationalized "getting in on the action". In that scenario, he may not have wished to ask a lot of questions and turned a blind eye to any suspicions. Such actions may have been in violation of other criminal or civil codes for investment advisors (analogy: "I didn't look in the boxes because I thought I was helping to import heroin." "Well, you were smuggling guns, different crime, but still a crime.") so he wouldn't come out and say that's what happened as a defense, but it would explain how "he could have been so stupid" that you could believe he was also duped by the Ponzi. 67.243.29.174 (talk) 17:00, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
