“No One Would Listen”: Bernie Madoff and Hwood
So in the most recent NY Times “Sunday Magazine,” their questions feature by Deborah Solomon was with Harry Markopolos, a man who tried to blow the whistle to the SEC on Bernie Madoff several times over a 10 year period, culminating in a 21-page report in 2005 which stated this:
Bernie Madoff is running the world’s largest unregistered hedge fund. He’s organized this business as [a] “hedge fund of funds privately labeling their own hedge funds which Bernie Madoff secretly runs for them using a split-strike conversion strategy getting paid only trading commissions which are not disclosed.”
Here are a few of the Q&A’s in Solomon’s feature:
What was it like to spend nine years trying to persuade the Securities and Exchange Commission that Bernard Madoff was a fraud, only to learn that the agency thought he was perfectly reputable?
For nine years I was the S.E.C.’s doormat.
Now you’re triumphant, a hero in investment circles who exposes the S.E.C. as the most futile of agencies in your new book, “No One Would Listen.”
It was a trip through the twilight zone.
Why do you think the S.E.C. failed to wake up to Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme until he turned himself in?
They weren’t even asleep at the switch; they were comatose. They didn’t respond to heat and light, much less evidence of wrongdoing. They were not engaged in the fight.
This was when William Donaldson was head of the S.E.C.?
Donaldson was too tough on Wall Street, so he got the ax. Then you had Christopher Cox, because he wasn’t going to do his job. That’s why he got the job.
Turns out Markopolos has written a book about his efforts to nail Madoff, appropriately titled “No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller”. Which makes this little bit of business in the Q&A quite interesting:
Has anyone contacted you about making a film based on your book?
Yes. All the major studios. Sony, Paramount, Tom Hanks, you name it.
Allow me to dreamcast this movie’s production, featuring some of Madoff’s most visible Hwood names, each of whom was ripped off by Madoff:
Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenwriter: Eric Roth
Actors: Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick to play Harry Markopolos and wife.
Of course, all involved will likely want to change the facts to make a more satisfying Hwood movie — because the fact is Madoff was never caught. Rather he turned himself in when the economic downturn caused his Ponzi scheme to collapse.
In light of that, I think Roth may want to create a Final Struggle where Markopolos has a man-to-man showdown with Madoff (played by John Malkovich) involving guns, knives, and martial arts with Madoff somehow ending out the window of a skyscraper for a very long and very painful descent into hell.
Perhaps if the movie is a big enough hit, all of these Hwood’s participants will make enough off their gross participation positions to recoup their losses with Madoff.
And that would make for a real Hollywood ending!