Bernie Madoff: 'The Banks Had To Know What I Was Doing'
Posted: 02/24/2013 1:10 pm EST
Big banks had to know Bernie Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme, according to Bernie Madoff.
In an email penned from jail, one of the biggest Ponzi schemers in history told Fox Business Network that those responsible for recouping his victims’ money should keep going after the banks where he had accounts.
“The Banks had to know what I was doing regarding the fraud,” Madoff wrote in the email.
Madoff, who was sentenced to 150 years in prison in 2009 for his multi-billion dollar scheme, has made this claim before. He told The New York Times in an interview from prison in 2011 that the banks "had to know" he was committing fraud, but chose to turn a blind eye.
Madoff had dealings with a variety of banks and hedge funds, and burned Madoff investors have tried to recoup funds from some of them. Madoff held an account at JPMorgan Chase that he used to shuffle money between offices in London and New York. In 2011, two Madoff investors sued the bank for $19 million, claiming they aided in his fraud, according to CNN. At the time, a JPMorgan spokesman dismissed the lawsuit as “meritless.”
The trustees responsible for returning the money to Madoff’s victims also sued JPMorgan and UBS, but a judge ultimately tossed out the suits.
JPMorgan didn’t immediately return an emailed request for comment on Madoff’s email from The Huffington Post Sunday.
Madoff has been rather prolific in recent months, penning multiple letters to news organizations from prison. In a January letter to CNBC, Madoff criticized Wall Street signing bonuses, saying they put too much pressure on the employees who receive them to promote special products. In addition, Madoff criticized the ills of modern finance in a letter to CNBC on Christmas Eve. He also emailed CNBC earlier this month, saying he wished he had gone to trial instead of pleading guilty to the fraud.
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