Well, sure. Fuck him. I agree. But a lot (and I mean a lot - a significant percentage) of Madoff’s “victims” knew that Madoff was scamming. They weren’t quite sure how, but they knew. Most of them assumed he was trading on inside information, or front-running. A much smaller number suspected that the whole thing was a Ponzi scheme. They didn’t care, though, as long as they continued to show profits. Some got out in time. Many more didn’t. And yes, many were innocent victims.
Madoff deserves every day of his sentence. Absolutely. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that many, if not most, of his “victims” weren’t little old ladies losing their meagre retirement funds, they were insanely rich people greedily looking for more easy money, without caring too much (or wanting to know too much) where that easy money came from.
What Madoff was up to and how he was doing it had been topics of gossip on Wall Street for years. Being on the fringes of the business, I’d heard it. There was almost nobody in the business who thought Madoff was on the up-and-up, and that includes the managers and advisors who steered clients to Madoff’s funds. Nobody cared, but mostly people with any knowledge of the business hought Madoff was up to no good.
I have a hard time seeing Madoff as the criminal of the century. Believe me, Madoff isn’t the only one. This stuff goes on every single day on Wall Street. It’s still going on. Nobody gives a shit. Not the compliance people at Wall Street firms, not the SEC, not even the investors, unless they’re the ones left holding the bag.