CULTURE AND SOCIETY

After Madoff: Waiting for Justice

Lionel S. Lewis

Published online: 27 January 2011
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011

This essay examines how Madoff’s victims adapted to their
suddenly diminished financial security, status, and self
image after learning that they had been swindled. The
primary foci are: (1) What they were thinking and feeling
about their changed circumstances and (2) How they were
coping with them. To best answer these and other
questions, during the summer of 2010—approximately a
year after Madoff was incarcerated—letters and e-mails
were sent to all but seven of the initial list of 167 victims
asking for up-to-date descriptions of family, financial, and
health challenges they had encountered, had overcome, and
were still facing. Some victims, when it seemed appropri-
ate, also were asked to comment on the activities of other
victims whom they knew, had read about, or in other ways
had heard about since Madoff was arrested.

Forty-two individuals or couples responded favorably to
the request to participate in this phase of the study, and an
additional eight responded but declined to provide addi-
tional information beyond what had already been gathered.
Moreover, 14 of the 42 were interviewed, seven one time,
four twice, and three thrice. Thirteen of the 167, along with
16 other individuals, contributed a brief memoir to a
volume of essays, letters, and poems put together in 2010
by a group of Madoff victims and family members, and
what the thirteen wrote was utilized to supplement
information previously provided by them or otherwise
collected for their files. As an interpretive framework,
Erving Goffman’s observations about the social processes
that come into play for placating those who have suffered a

loss, who have been cheated or who may feel cheated or in
other ways disappointed, are used.

“On Cooling the Mark Out”

In one of his highly original essays, “On Cooling the Mark
Out,” Erving Goffman first turns his attention to crime and
its victims, particularly those taken in by a “confidence
man” (or woman or gang) and by their need to adjust to
their loss—to the realization that they had actually been
deceived and cheated. Of particular relevance, Goffman
notes that “the con [the swindle] differs from politer forms
of financial deceit in important ways. The con is practiced
on private persons by talented actors who methodically and
regularly build up informal social relationships just for the
purpose of abusing them; white-collar crime is practiced on
organizations by persons who learn to abuse positions of
trust which they once filled faithfully. The one exploits
poise; the other position.” It is immediately apparent why
Goffman’s insights prove especially valuable in framing
and understanding the information provided by Madoff’s
victims about what they thought, felt, and did in the
aftermath of experiencing their loss and disappointment.

Since loss and disappointment are part of the human
condition, the true significance of Goffman’s essay is, of
course, that the themes he explores go far beyond those
who have been cheated in a confidence game. His insights
help further our understanding of those who have a
grievance about any loss and disappointment. This would
include those victimized because of their actions or because
of the actions of others who also may have been taken in.

Goffman contends that the con is “a good racket in the
United States only because most Americans are willing, nay
eager, to make easy money, and will engage in action that is

L. S. Lewis (*)
17 Morningside Lane,
Williamsville, NY 14221, USA
e-mail: soclsl@buffalo.edu

Soc (2011) 48:159–173
DOI 10.1007/s12115-010-9412-5



less than legal in order to do so. The typical play has typical
phases. The potential sucker is first spotted and one
member…arranges to make social contact with him. The
confidence of the mark is won, and he is given an
opportunity to invest his money in a gambling venture
which he understands to be fixed in his favor. The venture,
of course, is fixed, but not in his favor. The mark is
permitted to win some money and then persuaded to invest
more. There is an ‘accident’ or ‘mistake’ and the mark
losses his total investment.” The Robert Redford-Paul
Newman movie The Sting (inspired by real-life events)
with all of these elements—the quest for easy money, the
bait with the promise of a sure win, the ruse to gain trust,
and the loss of everything due to a misunderstanding—
portrays perfectly how a con works. Madoff’s Ponzi
scheme, since it began sometime after the 1973 release of
The Sting, might be looked at as life imitating art. Although
as inventive, complex, and typical, it proved far less
entertaining.

Goffman also notes that sometimes a mark is not
prepared to accept a loss, and may feel moved to complain
to authorities. In order to avoid such adverse publicity, an
additional phase “is sometimes added at the end of the play.
It is called cooling the mark out.”

Although the reaction of anyone who has been swindled
is unpredictable, con men depend on their “grift sense” to
tell them roughly what an individual’s reaction will be. Will
he cry or complain? Will she do something ridiculous?
Maurer has written that “some marks are tough and can
cause plenty of trouble if they get out of hand. Some are
well-bred and take their medicine like men. Laughing
marks are usually considered the most dangerous…. Some
marks are mean, grasping, and cunning.” “It is easy for the
layman to understand,” Maurer adds, “why some marks
blow up when they realize that they have been trimmed
[cheated]. If these marks are not properly cooled out, they
may get the mob into serious trouble….” At the same time,
“many of them [marks], realizing or suspecting that they
have been swindled, immediately cause trouble, and all the
ingenuity and persuasiveness of the inside man is required
to prevent serious repercussions; sometimes all that fails
and the con men are indicted. But not very often,
considering the large number of marks who are beaten.”
To minimize repercussions, it is obviously worthwhile to
make an effort to cool the mark out.

However, besides the short court trial, where a handful
of victims were briefly permitted to crush Madoff verbally
and to listen to the sentencing judge do the same, this
element was missing in the months following his arrest,
when his victims were most unsettled. There was little to
keep the anger of Madoff’s victims, the marks, “within
manageable and sensible proportions.” In short, there was
insufficient consolation and very obviously this exacerbated

an already unacceptable situation. It would not have
surprised Goffman that very few of Madoff’s victims were
willing to accept their loss. Almost immediately, a number
were busy challenging individuals and institutions which
they believed were not sufficiently engaged in working on
their behalf to overturn the damage caused by Madoff, and
which fell short of adopting their world-view. As time
passed, more joined their efforts. The majority who became
active in pressing their case stayed active; in the first year
the involvement of only a few flagged.

From the beginning, the victims’ situation was untenable
given that a number of those who had invested with Madoff
were convinced that: (1) They were privy to inside
information (Hadn’t a bridge partner or someone in their
golf foursome told them their investment was a sure
thing?); (2) They were entitled—a view that the successful
careers of so many of them made plausible and readily
acceptable; (3) They were smart, a belief so many middle
class American hold about themselves; (4) They could not
lose (after all, their cousin’s niece was building quite a nest
egg with Madoff, and she was not yet 40 years old.); (5)
They were deserving. In fact, an incredibly large number
described themselves as “frugal” and “hard-working,” an
assessment sometimes, but not always, borne out by their
biographies:

We lived simply, in an apartment while putting money
aside to purchase a future home. Since I was not an
earner, I contributed by taking on responsibilities that
would have cost money. So I did all the housework,
cleaning and polishing, washing and ironing, hem-
ming and altering plus I gave up personal expenses
like beauty parlors and bought only inexpensive
clothing. We drove used cars, camping was the way
we vacationed. I set up a tiny section of our bedroom
for a studio and snatched little bits of time to paint.

Also my sense of community responsibility, inherited
from my parents, was always with me. School issues
became a major concern and soon I became president
of a very large, active PTA. I called a conference
where we determined the books in elementary schools
did not reflect the diversity of our city. As a result the
books were rewritten. And we achieved that goal.
That was just one of the many worthy projects to
which I gave time. (Client #28)

We didn’t live with millions of dollars. We lived with
people like ourselves—middle class people who
worked damned hard to earn a buck. (Client #123C)

It is hardly surprising that some dropped their usual
defenses which had heretofore protected them and their
families from being victimized in matters small and large.
As a result, all lost a significant amount of their savings; a

160 Soc (2011) 48:159–173



number reported they were left penniless or, as they saw it,
nearly penniless. On top of this, they had no protection
from media-fueled second guessing and ridicule from
friends, acquaintances, and strangers. A few, but only a
few, began to see what those who had not suffered a loss at
the hands of Madoff saw, namely, that perhaps they were
not as shrewd or smart as they had thought, but simply
marks in a very large, long-running, and, for them, invisible
con game. The situation was continually made much worse
by the probing media, or from media which mindlessly
echoed their self serving and sometimes erroneous claims
while drowning out voices that might otherwise have
helped cool them out. In fact, a small number seemed to
be vying to see how often they could be interviewed by a
television or newspaper reporter. (See Appendix for an
example of a joint television interview of nine victims,
seven of whom were from the initial list of 167, covering
myriad issues.) They did not have, as they had convinced
themselves, an inside track on safely and profitably invest-
ing. Some, if not all, self images surely suffered. The
absolute necessity that they be consoled, that they be
“cooled out,” was immediately evident, but it rarely
happened.

After the swindle in The Sting, the mark is quickly
hustled out of the fake betting parlor by a police officer,
being told that it is better to lose a substantial amount of
money than to become fodder to the press or even to
become implicated in a double homicide. However, for
Madoff’s victims there was no social mechanism, no
representative of the law or government to perform this
function. Some government agency might have done so,
but none did. On the contrary, the staff of the SEC, which
may have served this function, had with each passing week
revealed how hapless and dysfunctional it had become.
Moreover, the trustee who represented Madoff’s estate and
the SIPC made a number of decisions with which most
victims vehemently disagreed. On top of that, the courts
supported the trustee’s interpretation of the law and his
actions. Finally, the government sometimes seemed to go
out of its way to wrong victims. Client #23 reports, for
example: “We filed a claim with the IRS for a refund due to
a theft loss and received a refund of $30,000 for a 5-year
period which was great, but then they decided to audit us
for the theft loss and said they want the money back until
they can determine if the Madoff claims are truly a theft
loss…. So we are working that out now…. The IRS
believes that the money still exists (per our IRS agent
information) and given that they are contesting most of the
refund claims, we are told.”

Goffman reminds us that it is a mistake in a con game to
account for the greatness of anger by the greatness of
financial loss: “In many cases, especially in America, the
mark’s image of himself is built up on the belief that he is a

pretty shrewd person when it comes to making deals and
that he is not the sort of person who is taken in by anything.
The mark’s readiness to participate in a sure thing is based
on more than avarice; it is based on a feeling that he will
now be able to prove to himself that he is the kind of person
who can ‘turn a fast buck’.” At best, their loss and
disappointment only proved to Madoff’s victims that they
were no wiser than they were decades earlier, that they had
not been taught or learned a great deal over the years. “Why
should I suffer any loss?” Client #31A asked. “It might not
seem like a lot, and I can earn it all and more back in less
than 2 years, but it was mine and not Madoff’s to buy
another house with.” Client #86 concurred: “It’s not the
money, which is no big thing, but the principal (sic). It [the
loss] isn’t going to make us change how and where we live,
but I still intend to get every dollar back no matter how
long it takes.”

It is hardly surprising that not only were there few if any
victims of Madoff who would share Goffman’s (or a career
con man like “Yellow Kid” Weil’s) conclusion that some of
them might have been a little too eager to make money and
that was why in the end they lost it. Instead, many victims
became infuriated at even the suggestion that they may
have done anything which had contributed to their financial
losses. When it was suggested to Client #97B that the
victims not only did not want to take any responsibility for
their financial losses, but believed in their complete
innocence, he indignantly wrote: “You are completely
clueless as to why we feel the way we do, and in many
cases your description of the victims is so completely
wrong and demonstrates your ignorance and misperceptions
of the history of Madoff.” He, not unexpectedly, refused to
participate further in the study.

Actually, there were many as deeply hurt and suspicious
after the loss of all or a large percentage of their economic
security. (Client #97B, whose investment in the Ponzi
scheme was largely from his professional earnings, “lost $3
million to Madoff.”) After such a searing experience, it is
surprising that any were willing to participate in the study
or be interviewed, although one journalist reported that
“once word got out that I was going to write an article
about the Madoff mess, my cell phone never stopped
ringing. Victims I hardly knew wanted to tell their stories,
vent their anger, get revenge.”

Challenging the SIPC

Even in light of the many bruised egos and small amount of
help from government sources, the degree of suspicion
about the motives of the public face of the federal
government, the SIPC and the trustee, seemed excessive.
In the expression of anger here nothing was out of bounds.

Soc (2011) 48:159–173 161



In spite of the amount of time they spent, the economic and
psychological costs incurred, and the complete lack of
success in their efforts, the victims assaulted the trustee at
every turn.

The crux of the feud with the SIPC and the trustee was a
disagreement about the meaning and interpretation of the
Securities Investor Protection Act (SIPA) of 1970 (and its
1978 amendments). First, Madoff’s victims believed that
they had insurance against losses. However, a court
decision in 1975 ruled that the SIPC is not an insurer, nor
does it guarantee that customers will recover their invest-
ments which may have diminished as a result of, among
other things, market fluctuations or broker-dealer fraud.
This was the trustee’s position. Second, most of Madoff’s
victims—those who invested directly with him and those
who invested indirectly with him through a feeder fund—
held that they were entitled to SIPC benefits. However,
court decisions have held that Congress intended SIPA to
protect only those who entrusted property directly to a
broker, specifically. The only type of investor who qualified
as a customer of a broker-dealer was an investor who paid
cash directly to a broker-dealer. Indeed, one court decision
pushes this definition further, stating that individuals who
unwittingly invested in a Ponzi scheme by issuing checks
payable to anyone other than to the failed broker, were not
customers within the meaning of the SIPA. This was the
trustee’s position. In a court filing, the SIPC held that to be
truly a Madoff customer, an investor must have had a
securities account with him or had cash or securities with
him with the reasonable expectation that an account would
be set up, and must have entrusted cash or securities for the
purpose of investing in securities. This could only be
“ascertainable from the books and records” of Madoff.

Third, Madoff’s victims argued that their net equity was
what they had invested with him. However, the courts
interpreted net equity to mean total value of cash and
securities “less total value of cash and securities” the
customer owed to the broker. Thus, according to the courts,
net equity can be easily determined by calculating what
would have been owed the customer if securities had been
liquidated. The reasoning was that because for Madoff’s
victims there were no securities to be liquidated, accounts
were valued according to what was invested minus what
was withdrawn. This was the trustee’s position. Fourth,
some Madoff victims believed they were entitled to interest
on their investments. However, the courts ruled that the
SIPA does not authorize the payment of interest on
customer accounts. In fact, when a brokerage firm was
operating a Ponzi scheme this did not include supposed
interest that customers were to receive on their investments;
rather, customers were entitled, subject to statutory limits,
to only the return of their principal as reduced by any
amount which they had received from brokerage, whether

as interest, return of principal, or any other payment. This
was the trustee’s position.

Fifth—and what was surely the most contentious issue
as far as the victims were concerned—was how the total
amount of their investment should be determined. A large
majority of the victims (at least those who expressed their
view on the matter) believed that the value of their account
could be found in the November 2008 statement from
Madoff, the last one they received before his arrest. Yet,
this was contrary to a 2004 court case, which held that
claims of purchasers of bogus securities were required to be
valued at the amount they initially paid for them, and could
not include any artificial interest or dividend reinvestments
reflected in fictitious account statements that may have
been received. This was the trustee’s position.

A number of victims who were not initially convinced
that they had been wronged by the government’s take on
one or more of these points of disagreement were shortly
convinced otherwise by other victims—often by means of
online websites (online communities, online networks,
online social support groups), which mushroomed and
thrived. Attorneys also were instrumental in persuading
victims that the most effective way of forcing the trustee to
reverse a position, that is, of “getting the complete justice
they deserved,” was going on the attack not only against the
trustee, but also his staff, and the SIPC. Among other
things, they initiated lawsuits, complained to their elected
representatives and the media, and wrote e-mails and
letters. Victims also were urged to challenge the courts,
which interpreted the law in the same way as the trustee.
This was not an easy matter; yet they persisted. In their
dispute with the trustee, the victims often spoke about
fairness, principles, equity, justice, and the like. But it was
quite evident that they were less moved by these concepts
than by the wish to get as much of their investments
returned to them as possible, and they expected—some
demanded—prompt action. At bottom, many disputes were
about money and little else: “I think the way we have been
treated by everyone shows that most people today lack
compassion…. I would think,” Client #72 argued, “every-
one would agree that as a country we would all be better off
if more of us practiced the ‘Golden Rule’…. That’s really
what this country is about…. Yes, Congress and the
president should see that we get all of our money back
plus interest.” And again: “Does anyone not agree that we
have been hurt by unfair treatment? And why is it that only
those who play by the rules end up being hurt? ... I would
hope that you would understand that if fair play wins out,
our IRA and the IRAs of others will be fully restored….
Who wouldn’t want [their] money back?”

The SIPA and the courts had given the trustee broad and
nearly unassailable power, and it was clear it would not be
easy to convince him to return any more to the victims than

162 Soc (2011) 48:159–173



he believed the law, as he interpreted it, said they had
coming. He was unyielding, and not much interested in
what he saw as peripheral issues. His firmness only
incensed victims, who believed that he was unnecessarily
unyielding. They were convinced that the questions they
were raising were truly relevant and worth considering.
They felt he too often ignored them.

Not everyone, of course, was disappointed at the govern-
ment’s response to their plight. When, for example, one of the
nine individuals (Client #86) selected to denounce Madoff at
his sentencing trial in June received his $500,000 check from
the SIPC four months after he had submitted his claim, he was
elated. Although Madoff had stolen $5 million from him and
the government payment was only 10% of that amount, he
understood that by law it was the maximum the government
would reimburse any account and he considered himself “well
off by any reasonable standard and for that I am grateful.” The
money would be of immediate use to pay off the first
mortgage on his home. He seemed particularly pleased that
he was among the first claimants the SIPC paid. (A few other
victims groused that his claim was readily settled because he
had political connections. This unsubstantiated accusation
found its way into the media.) He promptly returned his
questionnaire and optimistically wrote: “Since I lost almost
$5,000,000 by investing directly with Madoff and indirectly
through two feeder funds and because the overall economy
has experienced an extremely severe recession, naturally my
financial situation has deteriorated. I still consider myself well
off financially and certainly have no reason to complain when
so many millions of people cannot find jobs…. I immediately
[as he had averred he would] paid off the mortgage on our
home. We also received considerable tax refunds from the
federal government, but not from [the state in which he
resides], which refuses to refund the taxes we paid on fictitious
income.” It is noteworthy that at the time he received the
$500,000 from the SIPC, 99 percent of the nearly 9,000
Madoff investor claims at that point had not even been
approved. Nonetheless, few of Madoff’s victims would be as
pleased by the SIPC’s action.

And Client #101 understood that her “situation [was]
probably a little different from” that of most of Madoff’s
victims. She was younger than most and had two young
children. A few months before Madoff was arrested, she was
diagnosed with thyroid cancer and had a thyroidectomy, and
after that she discovered that her husband was having an affair
with her best friend. Still, after “losing all my money” she
found employment and with the help from other friends and
relatives, but none from the government, she reported that her
“life is much better now than it was before the Madoff fiasco
actually.” She concluded that she got “pleasure from [her]
work…, [and that] I’m actually a very lucky person.”

Both Clients #86 and 101 were clearly part of a tiny
minority.

More typically, an individual who had written a succinct
and compelling victim impact statement (Client #143)
promptly became the co-principal in a lawsuit against the
trustee, claiming that he had treated her unfairly in
adjudicating her claim. After an unfavorable court decision,
she brought another action, but again she was unsuccessful.
Her attorney, who herself had invested with Madoff, did not
cool her out. On the contrary, she urged her not to back
down, to continue to seek redress in the courts. The
attorney, in fact, had written the court earlier demanding
that victims “must be given a seat at the table. To date, we
have not been given that opportunity…in the bankruptcy
proceedings….” She went on to remind the court that
“people in their 90’s are being put into nursing homes for
the first time in their lives because their children can no
longer afford to maintain them in private homes. People in
their 70’s and 80’s, who retired with the assurance of a
steady income from their Madoff accounts, are being forced
to sell their houses in a depressed market in order to have
money to buy food.…” She asked that the government
become more active in finding the stolen funds, and that the
court “appoint a committee of investors [to help] assure
restitution to Madoff’s victims.” Given the rawness of the
attorney’s emotions, it is hardly surprising that this client
and any of her other clients were not prepared to accept
their losses. Whatever the challenge, the trustee remained
unmoved, and was certainly not prepared, himself, to cool
victims out.

Three irreversible decisions by the trustee, the SIPC, and
its attorneys were centermost to this and to other victims’
bitterness. First, the trustee and the SIPC would not budge
from the decision to pay its full $500,000 insurance
obligation only on the amount investors actually invested
with Madoff, less any withdrawals they may have made
(that is, net investment), ignoring years of phantom profits
on which taxes had been paid. The SIPC did not see the tax
issue of some victims as a problem it needed to solve.
Second, the trustee was determined to recover the money
that investors may have withdrawn from their accounts that
was in excess of their investment with Madoff. He had set
in motion a plan to promptly move ahead on this matter.
This was called a “clawback.” Third, he continued to insist
that only funds directly invested with Madoff, and not those
invested in feeder funds, were covered by SIPC.

According to the aforementioned lawyer’s 2009 con-
gressional testimony—and math—at about the time she was
writing the court, these procedures established by the SIPC
“would reduce the total Madoff claims from $64.8 billion to
approximately $21 billion and…reduce the number of
customers entitled to SIPC insurance from approximately
4,904 account holders to 2,335 account holders.” She also
contended that the SIPC proposal that individuals “pay
back to the bankruptcy estate all funds withdrawn within

Soc (2011) 48:159–173 163



the past 6 years up to the amount of the negative net
investment” was grossly unfair.

What she and some of her clients actually wanted was to
replace the trustee after he had denied “prompt replacement
of up to $500,000 of … securities as reflected on their
November 30, 2008 statement received from Madoff.”
They were convinced that getting the court to remove the
trustee was a first and necessary step that needed to be
taken if they were to have any success in their efforts to be
made financially whole. The trustee and the SIPC had
argued in court that returning the amount clients found in
their November 2008 statements was completely “imprac-
ticable,” as the statements reflected non-existent invest-
ments and were, of course, complete fabrications. Much to
the annoyance of Madoff’s victims, the attorney for the
SIPC told the judge that “no one in their right mind” would
use financial statements that were simply fabricated by
Madoff as a basis for calculating assets: “The last customer
statement, being a concoction of a fraudster, is not
something on which you can rely” in calculating net equity.
(When victims later learned that in just one four-month
period this attorney submitted a bill to the court for
$837,457.50, having worked 1,015.10 hours at $825 an
hour, they could only be described as absolutely rabid.)

The SIPC held firm that of the 15,870 claims that had
been filed at that point only 2,336 were truly valid, as they
were the only ones that had a net loss. This also further
infuriated a number of Madoff’s victims. The SIPC was
holding fast to the trustee’s method for compensating
investors: “cash in/cash out.” In effect, with this decision,
the trustee had reduced the SIPC’s liabilities from more
than $7 billion (certainly not $64.8 billion) to approximate-
ly $1.2 billion. (All of these numbers were constantly
changing, and will continue to change before all matters are
fully resolved over the years. At a later date, with more than
15,000 claims filed, the Madoff trustee Website valued the
total number of “allowed claims” at roughly $5.2 billion.)
The condescension and firmness on all matters by the SIPC
legal team completely enraged the Madoff victims, who
repeatedly challenged the trustee but with no success. They
were prepared for a long and bitter fight, and this is exactly
what they were in the midst of.

The bankruptcy judge, although expressing sympathy for
the defrauded investors, concurred with the SIPC trustee,
writing “the account statements are entirely fictitious, do
not reflect actual securities positions that could be liquidat-
ed, and therefore cannot be relied upon to determine net
equity.” He concluded that because securities were never
“ordered, paid for, or acquired…the only verifiable
amounts that are manifest from the books and records are
the cash deposits and withdrawals.”

The Madoff victims were not deterred. For her part, the
attorney for the Madoff investors argued that the trustee’s

actions were “solely to enrich SIPC at the expense of SIPC’s
insureds.” She expressed the seemingly overlarge concern that
“aside from the devastation Picard [the trustee] has caused to
thousands of customers, he has created a serious threat to the
national economy because he is single-handedly destroying
investor confidence in the capital markets.” She was one of the
first to suggest that at bottom the trustee was more interested
in saving the SIPC money than in helping the victims recover
their money. He was more concerned with minimizing the
losses of brokers and bankers than those of investors. One
victim referred to him as a “stooge.” Another victim described
him as a “thief,” and “no better than a hired assassin.” Another
victim called him a “pimp.” Another victim simply wondered
why he was so calloused, so determined to use them as
“pawns.” As this very much involved lawyer saw it, what the
trustee had done was much more than unlawful; it was a
“violation of the public trust.” In fact, however, the public was
becoming less sure of this assessment. To the decreasing
number of the public still paying attention, the tactics of the
victims were beginning to look “desperate” and “greedy.”
(Although his victims had largely lost interest in Madoff after
he was found guilty and imprisoned, the public, fascinated by
the grandness of his Ponzi scheme, was still very much
interested in every detail of his life in prison fed to them by the
media. Like Princess Diana, O.J. Simpson, Natalee Holloway,
or Nelson Mandela, Madoff had become a bona fide celebrity.)

In the eyes of many of Madoff’s investors, the effect of
the totality of the SIPC’s decisions was to victimize them
yet once again. This became an idée fixe.

The Trustee

Very quickly, and not surprisingly, the trustee became the
primary target of the victims’ considerable and continually
growing anger. His actions had done little to cool them out.
At the same time, the trustee soon became the only face of
the government. The widespread view in government
circles was that those whose money had been stolen by
Madoff were surely unfortunate, but not deserving of
extraordinary help, not deserving of a government rescue,
or, as some elected representatives and those in the media
put it, “a bailout.” The trustee apparently also held this
view. As they continued to question and pummel the trustee
on every point, as they continued to press their case, the
victims came to be seen more and more by outsiders as
simply greedy. The reservoir of sympathy for them had
begun to evaporate more and more rapidly.

At this point, at least publicly, the trustee appeared to be
very much concerned about the plight of the victims, yet
there was absolutely no hope of his adopting any points
they were so keen in making, let alone their world-view. As
he saw it, his responsibility was straightforward: His job

164 Soc (2011) 48:159–173



was to collect as many of the assets that Madoff had not
spent or that had not inexplicably vanished and distribute
them fairly to those whose money had been lost in the
Ponzi scheme. He continued to argue that his “cash in/cash
out approach to calculating ‘net equity’ is the only one
consistent with SIPA [law], bankruptcy law, principles of
equity, and common sense.”

The trustee was aware that there would be many challenges
to the method being used to determine claims. In fact, by
March 31, 2010, over 2,600 objections had been filed with the
Bankruptcy Court. Some victims continued to insist that the
cash in/cash out approach was arbitrary and unfair, that the
value of a claim should be based on their November 30, 2008
statement; some still wanted interest paid on their investment;
some believed that they were entitled to an immediate
payment of $500,000; some argued that indirect investors,
not only direct investors, should be covered by the SIPC;
some contended that each name on a joint account should be
eligible for an SIPC payment. The trustee was besieged on all
sides. Not once did he waver.

Regardless of their lack of success in court against the
trustee, some victims were undeterred in their efforts to
thwart his efforts to move ahead. At times the court grew
impatient with their unwillingness to accept the fact that
they had been swindled, and to quit contesting each step in
the process of collecting and redistributing what Madoff
had accumulated. When, for example, after losing a
decision, a plaintiff filed again, “raising virtually the
identical issues,” the exasperated judge concluded that the
entire exercise was “bordering on [the] frivolous.” The
trustee found most allegations against him to be “spurious,”
but was decidedly bothered by the fierce ad hominem
attacks against him and the SIPC staff. He seemed truly
surprised by how many were suspicious of every action he
took. By tying him up in legal minutiae, the victims were
slowing his work of cleaning up the mess Madoff had left
behind. Of course, the longer he was required to stay on the
job, the more he earned as trustee. What he was doing may
at times have hurt him personally, but it was surely
lucrative, thanks in part to the victims’ activism.

At times, Madoff’s victims were uncharacteristically
quiet when the trustee resolved a complicated matter. They
were silent, for example, when in late August 2010 he
convinced the judge overseeing Madoff’s business affairs to
ask the Supreme Court of Gibraltar to transfer $73.1 million
to him to use to compensate those who had lost money in
Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

And Suing the Trustee

On the other hand, about a week after this trustee success, a
number of victims joined two lawsuits challenging a nearly

$34 million bill for work the trustee and his firm had
performed in the previous quarter, from February 1, 2010
through May 31, 2010. In the first suit, the plaintiffs
reminded the court that “this equates to $5,010 in daily
compensation, including all weekends and holidays, for the
trustee, and $283,179.45 in daily compensation for [his law
firm], again including all weekends and holidays…. These
figures are excessive by any measure and should not be
approved….” The core of one suit was that “investors have
no ability to evaluate the efficiency or professionalism of
the work” because “detailed billing reports” were not filed.
The contention was that these eye-popping fees “come
directly from SIPC—from the very money that is necessary
to pay investors the $500,000 in SIPC insurance to which
they are entitled under SIPA.”

The second suit alleged that “the trustee has failed to
disclose material information,” information “vital for
customers to know and yet it has been concealed from
customers and the public”; and that “the trustee and [his
law firm] have a conflict of interest” in that the trustee and
his law firm “are far from ‘disinterested’”: as a result of
which “they are barred from receiving any compensation
under established precedents and principles of professional
conduct.”

In a 47-page response, the attorney for the trustee not
unexpectedly restated that “the trustee and his counsel
continued to work diligently on behalf of customers” and
Madoff’s estate. He also repeated that “no administrative
costs…will be paid out of any recoveries obtained by the
trustee for the benefit” of Madoff’s clients. The filing also
summarized the trustee’s professional background and
services. The trustee was still proceeding very deliberately.
(As of August 13, 2010, the trustee had determined 13,286
customer claims, of which 2,188 were allowed, and had
committed to pay approximately $715 million in funds
advanced to him by the SIPC. The allowed claims totaled
over $5.5 billion.)

Only weeks earlier the trustee had issued a report
detailing his activities, and here he was compelled again
to make the case that his efforts were unflagging. He
attempted to quiet his critics by pointing out that he had
gathered and organized approximately seven thousand
boxes of paper documents, identified approximately 8.3
million pages of documents to scan, was working to assess
the contents of more than 4,000 reels of microfilm and 87
transfile boxes of microfiche. He had also accumulated and
stored 1.4 million e-mails. Yet at this point, his staff was
still able to review 12,249 claims, of which 2,011 were
allowed for a total of $5.3 billion, and he had committed to
pay $668 million in cash advances from the SIPC. For the
most part, he denied the other 10,238 claims either because
those accounts had withdrawn more money than had been
deposited or the claim was filed by someone who was not a

Soc (2011) 48:159–173 165



direct investor with Madoff. At the same time, the trustee
had recovered $1.5 billion and had filed fourteen avoidance
actions seeking to recover more than $14.8 billion in
principal and fictitious profits from various feeder funds,
Madoff family members and friends, and related parties. He
had also issued subpoenas to more than 600 parties and
received approximately 6 million documents. If nothing
else, his office was extremely busy, and was kept busier by
the constant assaults on it by Madoff’s victims. Victims
held him up with legal maneuvers, and then wondered why
his work did not progress more rapidly and why it had
become so costly. Nearly 16 months after Madoff’s arrest,
only 1,769 accounts out of 16,314 claims had been fully or
partially satisfied. Of the claims, 4,273 were under review
and 7,865 were denied, for which no objections were filed.
These figures were at the core of the agitation of many of
Madoff’s victims and their supporters, family, friends,
attorneys, and journalists who had a public forum:

The Securities Investor Protection Corp., (SIPC)
whose logo brokerage firms pay to print on their
statements to gin up a sense of security among retail
customers, has not paid back the bulk of Madoff
investors, although the agency was set up under the
Nixon administration for the express purpose of
protecting Americans who tangle with Wall Street.
In a strangely twisted view, SIPC is actually proud to
have not helped investors who are victims of Wall
Street fraud, including Madoff investors. Is the SIPC
logo on your brokerage statement? Probably. Don’t
expect any money back, even when it’s been stolen
from you outright.

A number of victims joined in the outcry. Client #97A
confessed to being overwhelmed by “rage against [the]
injustice” she confronted at the hands of SIPC:

None of the victims are “winners.” We are all losers.
The only winners in the debacle are [the trustee] and
his law firm who have been making over a million
dollars a week for over a year now. To imply that any
of us are winners is disgusting…. We feel it’s
immoral to again victimize people who lost their life
savings by demanding back money they withdrew in
good faith and which they believed was theirs.
Elderly people are being tortured by the threat of
clawbacks, fearing the little they have left and their
homes will be taken from them.

Mr. Madoff isn’t deciding who is entitled to restitu-
tion. Mr. Picard [the trustee] and Mr. Harbeck [also
from SIPC] are. They have used that absurd statement
to deflect attention from their failure to adhere to
SIPA legislation. They are not working for the
victims. Their goal is to limit SIPC’s financial

exposure and hence that of the securities industry.
They claim that by using their calculations more
victims will be helped. This is simply not true….

Their claim that SIPC is not insurance is a smoke
screen. SIPC…might not have the word “insurance”
in its name as FDIC…does…. SIPC is insurance. The
only ones they are being “fair and equitable” to is
[sic] the securities industry that pays their salaries.

A relative, Client #97(B), added:

While our “job” was to get the message out that
Madoff was now irrelevant to us, and why SIPC,
perverting the laws, was relevant to everyone. If SIPC
could do this to us, they could do it to anyone….

The real tragedy was that the SIPC agency created by
Congress to protect investors had instead turned
against investors in favor of the securities industry it
was beholden to….

SIPC has shown that they will not honor their
statutory commitments.

In an essay in the same volume, Client #123 wrote:

But at 9,000 claims, poor old SIPC realized it would
be out of money and probably existence if it honored
its promises. SIPC’s definitions about responsibility
were quickly rewritten. Investors who, by SIPC’s
stated position, had a reasonable expectation to
believe securities they were told were purchased on
their behalf actually existed, were no longer entitled
to have those securities restored to them nor the
equivalent value of those securities in cash if the
securities were no longer available…. The law firm
denying those claims, in the meantime, is billing SIPC
close to a million dollars a week, money that’s
coming right out of the pot to reimburse investors.

Client #125 had as many suspicions, referring to “the
sham of SIPC.”

Now the skirmish had escalated into a battle. The trustee,
and, in effect, the SIPC were not simply being challenged
and harassed by Madoff’s victims; they were being taken to
court by them. There was the indignity of precisely
describing all of the services rendered, of providing “a
more detailed synopsis” task by task. The trustee even
complained publicly that he and his attorneys had to spend
time fighting repeated legal challenges by a handful of
victims who “purport to represent a class of those similarly
situated.” Moreover, the trustee’s attorney faced the
additional indignity of submitting an affidavit certifying
that the application for compensation “complies with
guidelines for fee application” under bankruptcy law, and
even that in seeking reimbursement for services purchased

166 Soc (2011) 48:159–173



or contracted from a third party it requested money “only
for the amount billed.”

Less than 2 weeks after the two lawsuits were filed
against the trustee, the bankruptcy judge awarded him the
fees he had requested. This was the third time the judge had
rejected victims’ objections in approving legal fees
requested by the trustee.

The effects of the actions on the part of Madoff’s victims
on making the trustee’s work less lucrative may have been
insignificant; however, they surely made it less pleasant,
forcing him to publicly defend himself, his ethics and
competence, and entreat the court for his money.

Suing the SEC

Six weeks after the SEC issued its self critical report, two of
the victims of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme—a disabled, retired
single mother and a physician approaching retirement—
filed a lawsuit against the federal government accusing the
SEC of negligence for failing to protect investors. The suit
asked for monetary damages “arising from the serial, gross
negligence … [during the SEC’s] multiple investigations
and examinations.” Instead, by its implied clean bills of
health or seal of approval, the SEC “caused Madoff’s
scheme to continue, perpetuate, and expand in billions in
losses by investors.” The two plaintiffs argued that Madoff
could have and should have readily been stopped.

The premise of the lawsuit was that the SEC was
responsible to Madoff’s investors as it is reasonable to
expect that they would rely on the SEC to remove risk if it
had information that he was engaged in illegal activity.
Although it was Madoff’s dishonesty that was responsible
for their losses, the SEC’s actions and inactions, the
plaintiffs contended, were a substantial factor in bringing
about their injuries. It had not “carried out its functions with
even a minimum of reasonable care,” and it showed a
“wanton” indifference to public safety. The SEC had an
obligation to examine and investigate “potential wrongdo-
ing within the context of defined policies and routine
common sense practices.” However, in spite of multiple
complaints and investigations, as well as the several
reviews or inquiries, it had failed to do so.

The SEC, the plaintiffs further argued, disregarded its
policy that all relevant information from complaints be
vetted. This was due to at least one of the following:
negligence, incompetence, inexperience, inattentiveness, or
laziness. Moreover, it was acknowledged that policies and
practices in place for “case opening and closing memoran-
da, investigation planning memoranda, and communica-
tions between SEC offices and teams” were “routinely
disregarded.” Of particular relevance, in its inquiries the
SEC failed not only to confirm Madoff’s claimed trading

activities, it disregarded pertinent information because of
inter-office rivalries, and although it caught Madoff
repeatedly in contradictions and inconsistencies, failed to
validate or ask him to validate his claims. For example,
during the course of one investigation, SEC staff members
knew that what he told them about his management of
hedge funds and overseas accounts; the reason customer
statements were so vague about trading details; and that he
did not use e-mail to communicate with clients were all
untrue, but they nonetheless continued to rely on his oral
representations. He was most obviously lying when he first
claimed large scale option trading that was patently non-
existent and later when he reported that he had stopped
using such options. These assertions were purported to be
central to his claim of why his investment strategy was
consistently successful. The SEC did not appear bothered
by the barrage of Madoff’s untruths, perhaps assuming such
behavior was generally expected from the financial organ-
izations it monitored. Or it might have been that some of
the time its staff members were simply not paying attention.

The government attorneys responded that the SEC’s
failure to curtail Madoff’s fraud was due to “discretionary
judgments” and as a consequence shielded from liability.
Quite simply, this means that even if one were to
characterize the investigative work of the SEC as incom-
petent or negligent, the government cannot be sued, unless
it agrees to be sued, “based upon the exercise or
performance or the failure to exercise or perform a
discretionary function or duty.” The government’s defense
was that the law gives it blanket immunity when the
judgments of its officials are in question.

A Touch of Greed and Fragile Egos

As Goffman reminds us, before any con is initiated, one is
most likely to find evidence of greed and after any con is
executed one is more likely to find a plenitude of bruised
egos. With the Madoff Ponzi scheme both greed and
bruised egos were much in evidence.

First, in an effort to maximize the annual return on their
savings, when pressed on the question, some individuals
acknowledged investing a larger percentage of their wealth
or too much of it with Madoff than proved to be prudent.
More tellingly, some took out an additional mortgage on
their home so that they could invest more money in their
Madoff account. The contention of victim after victim was
that a consistent return of between 8 and 12 percent is what
one would expect from any investment, and that they did
not find the returns offered by Madoff exceptional.
However, if they truly believed this, it is unlikely that any
of them would have cashed in all or most of their other
investments and borrowed on their homes to increase the

Soc (2011) 48:159–173 167



amount in their Madoff account. Yet: (1) One victim (Client
#42A) lost his condominium valued at over $1 million
because he could no longer afford to make the mortgage,
insurance, and maintenance payments. A few years earlier,
he had borrowed against it in order to increase the total in
his account with Madoff. He blamed his plight on inaction
by the government. “Why shouldn’t we be fully reimbursed
by a government program?” he wondered. “It should be
like Social Security and Medicare.”

(2) A second victim (Client #126) was no less inclined to
blame the government for her decision to completely trust
Madoff: “Upon my retirement, I cashed my pension, 401K,
and additional salary that I received. I added all of this to
my Madoff IRA.” As she too saw it, the government was
making the situation a great deal worse: “Only a morally
bankrupt society would keep taxes collected as a result of a
criminal activity.”

(3) A third victim (Client #147) was simply following
what she believed were more knowledgeable relatives:
“Slowly in 2003 and the early part of 2004, I liquidated all
my holdings from Vanguard and transferred all of it over to
Bernie’s able hands…. By 2004 I was fully invested with
Madoff. I did have a small amount of bonds that I did not
add to the pile of monies transferred. In the spring of 2003,
I had decided to renovate my small but comfortable Florida
condo that was completely paid for; the advice given me by
the sage uncle and another financial advisor was to take a
‘little extra’ out in a loan and move it over to Bernie. ‘Don’t
tie your money up in bricks and stone; have it out there
working for you. You’ll earn more with Bernie than the
bank will charge you in interest.’ So, I did just that and
started making monthly mortgage payments. I now only
owned part of my Florida home, and had also obtained a
mortgage to purchase my Pennsylvania home. When it
came time for a new car, my advice was not to take a large
sum out of my investments with Bernard Madoff, but to get
a loan, and make monthly statements. My rate on the bank
loan will be less than the money I can earn with Madoff….
When each of my bonds matured, the advice I received was
to either live on the money or ‘slide it over to Bernard
Madoff.’”

(4) Another victim, who had borrowed to invest with
Madoff, asserted that he should be able to write off his bad
debt. “Everyone cheats,” he complained, “and I’m just not
going to be left holding the bag, whatever it takes.” (5)
Client #69A detailed her roller coaster ride: “We lived short
of our income for 34 years!! Just to be sure everything went
into our investments. We did very well with our real estate
and sold it all to roll it in to our accounts, then we sold our
family home and rolled it in; my husband’s pension was
rolled in as well as both of our IRAs; I was in a bad car
accident and left with many injuries; I rolled my entire
settlement into it also. Approximately 7 years ago, our

investor decided to stop the annuity investing and other
types that he did so we could ‘play with the big boys.’ He
only wanted to make more money for all his retired
clients.” (6) Like a number of others, Client #131, a retired
businessman, claimed that he was simply following the
advice of his accountant: “For many years I had all my
investments with Merrill Lynch. I was getting a nice return
on my money and was able to retire and live a comfortable
life.” Apparently this was not enough, as “my accountant
suggested I should diversify and recommended me to
Madoff, telling me of his great returns on investments….
Eventually, because of his high rate of return I moved all of
my money to an IRA account with Madoff.”

For many of Madoff’s former clients the bruised egos
and inevitable sadness were more evident than the greed.
This was hardly unexpected. In fact, according to Goffman,
the anger of the victims of a con has less to do with greed
than with bruised egos. The fact that so few bruised egos
had begun to heal a year and a half after Madoff’s arrest
adds credence to Goffman’s conclusion.

The material from the questionnaires and interviews
indicates that four other factors often also fostered anger
and sadness.

First, the greater the proportion of their wealth individ-
uals lost in the Ponzi scheme, the less likely their anger was
to dissipate. With their material life in ruins, those who lost
all or most of their money saw their future as bleak. The
months and years ahead held little promise and there was
little incentive to let go of anger and replace it with new
plans or hope. These victims were not eagerly or optimis-
tically looking forward to rebuilding their lives, but were
more likely to be still focused on December 11, 2008,
venting their anger publicly, hiring attorneys and listening
to their advice, and blaming the government for their losses.
It is hardly surprising that the greater the reduced circum-
stances, the greater the anger and sadness. “I’ll never get
over Madoff,” Client #55 assured me. “He’s wrecked my
life. There’s no money left and no hope. I have nothing. I
doubt if I’ll ever be happy again.” She added that one of her
friends, someone who had lived close by, felt the same, and
still had many sleepless nights and had become addicted to
prescription medicines: “We were sure we were making
careful decisions. I just don’t know how everything turned
out so badly. It’s not easy to face each day with any
confidence.”

Second, the more individuals relied on other victims for
information and emotional support, the angrier and sadder
they were. To some, this might seem counter intuitive, but
an examination of messages shared on the internet, where
so many individuals went for information and support,
suggests why this occurred. Although much necessary and
useful information and good advice were shared on the
internet, there was also a surfeit of misinformation and of

168 Soc (2011) 48:159–173



hostile interpretations of what had occurred, was occurring,
and would occur, so that a poisonous atmosphere was
pervasive. Unsubstantiated assertions were thrown about
not only with little regard to their validity, but with little
regard to their consequences. Rumors, speculation, and
untruths, of course, did little to enhance understanding and
dampen the still very raw passions of those in great pain.
Too often, exchanges on the internet not only did nothing to
cool the mark out, but instead caused a great deal of
additional and unnecessary emotional turmoil. “I’ve heard
more than one time,” client after client began a sentence
before stating some outlandish claim: “The government
doesn’t want to return our money, it wants to use it to fund
a secret research project,” or “Madoff could only have done
this with help from the highest levels of government.”

Third, the more shabbily individuals believed they were
treated by the government, the angrier or sadder, or angrier
and sadder, they were. This was the case not only for those
who actually appeared badly treated, ignored, or given the
bureaucratic runaround. And it also included those who
believed they were being treated badly because a decision
or outcome proved to be unfavorable to their interests. It
was relatively easy to convince the Ponzi scheme victims
that government officials were not only uncaring, but set
against them, determined to harm them even more. In a
number of cases auditors for the Internal Revenue Service
appeared to be decidedly unhelpful. Some elected officials
gave the appearance of carefully listening to the entreaties
of victims, but there is little evidence that they followed
through with much action. Client #50’s experience is fairly
typical: “As for the government, there has been no help
whatsoever. I have written many letters to senators and
congressmen and women. A very few answered with a
standard form letter which really tells me a lot. I’m
convinced most don’t care one iota. Most didn’t even have
the decency to reply or acknowledge in any way.”

Fourth, the greater the number of other setbacks, for
example, health problems, family problems, or other
financial problems—in addition to their financial losses
due to investing with Madoff—the angrier and sadder they
remained. It is obviously more difficult to bounce back
from simply losing one’s savings in Madoff’s Ponzi scheme
than from losing one’s savings and losing one’s spouse to
alcoholism or divorce in a very short period of time.

There is no way, of course, to know what the roots of the
anger and sadness of Madoff’s victims were. All that can be
said is that they were very apparent, and were not in the
least dissipated by activism—writing letters or essays,
broadcasting grievances, suing or the like. In a number of
instances, in fact, activism appeared to enhance anger and
sadness. Some might conclude that given the facts and the
harm caused by Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, the levels of anger
and sadness were not at all inappropriate, while others

might disagree. It is important that while some caught up in
Madoff’s Ponzi scheme appeared to be angry, angry and
sad, or sad; others did not appear to be the least bit
emotionally affected, not angry or not sad. It can be said,
however, that anger had become an acceptable tenet of their
world, very pervasive. As Goffman and any practiced con
man surely would have concluded, there would have been
less anger, grief, pain, or sadness if there had been
someone, some mechanism or institution to cool the marks
out.

The sample of quotations from the forty-two files shed
light on a great deal more than anger, grief, pain, sadness,
or the general state of mind of these Madoff victims a year
after he was sentenced to prison, but, more importantly,
they shed light on how they were coping with their losses,
financial and otherwise, as they waited for justice.

The first point to be made here, however, is that some,
almost one in five of the 42 respondents, expressed the
belief that although their financial loss was a great personal
disappointment that resulted in disrupting their lives
significantly, they were reasonably pleased with how their
lives had gotten back on track.

Client #102: “My family and I were very fortunate
insofar as we received our original stakes back from SIPC
and, also, our capital gains taxes from the IRS. Moreover,
we did not, by any means, have all our eggs in one basket
(diversification!!!). There was, of course, shock initially
and a certain amount of uncertainty until everything was
worked out, which took a little more than a year…. The
internet and, in particular, a private victims’ website, were
invaluable in keeping up with developments, getting
information, and sorting things out in my own mind….
Finally, I believe that [the trustee’s] definition of net equity
is absolutely correct, as is his interpretation of SIPA. Thus, I
harbor no anger and no grievance against him or anyone
else. I blame myself (but only a bit) for being a gullible
victim and for not being as smart as [the whistleblower]
Harry Markopolos….”

Another victim whose distress was substantially and
relatively quickly eased was Client #131, whose congres-
sional testimony, excerpted in a previous essay, details his
losses. “At first,” he writes, “the realities of my finances
were too much to bear. I was completely wiped out.
Absolutely devastated financially; left with no money and
few assets. Even after appearing before Congress I had no
idea how bad my situation was and how much worse it
would get…. To say it was difficult for my wife…and me
would be an understatement. We were both in a terrible
state of depression, and both undergoing psychological
counseling. I have to say there was more than one time I
thought about suicide.”

However, Client #131’s life turned around fairly rapidly.
Friends raised $50,000 to help pay the mortgage of his

Soc (2011) 48:159–173 169



home; his son and daughter-in-law gave him $25,000; his
sister, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and nephews gave him
more money; and his daughter and son-in-law bought him a
house. In spite of the fact that his life is clearly materially
better, he has not been entirely cooled out. Even after his
financial recovery, he was still publicly blaming the SEC
for what had occurred: “I could not believe the government
would let a thing like this happen.”

A second important point is that a considerable amount of
grief or pain that the victims had initially felt had dissipated for
many, but not for all. Client #106, who initially “almost killed
himself,” who “barely made it through each day [because] I
was so depressed and frightened,” would only go as far as to
say that he was “not comfortable” answering questions such
as whether the practice of his “old meditation techniques…
from having another panic attack” had worked or were
working. On the other hand, the outcome for Client #93,
who described the weeks following Madoff’s arrest as a
period marked by “a terrible depression—I did not drive a car
for 3 weeks…. I contemplated suicide often and was put on
heavy anti-depression medicine”—was clearly better. After a
brief period, he wrote, “I was finally not suicidal and decided
to do what I could to try to reinvent my life.” Client #131
admitted that he and his wife “both were in a terrible state of
depression, and both undergoing psychological counseling,”
and added, “I have to say there was more than one time I
thought about suicide.” However, with the passage of time
and with considerable financial help from family and friends,
he and his wife “are the two happiest people in the world.”

A word of caution: It is important not to exaggerate the
victims’ greed. They entrusted their money to professional
financial advisers, their decisions were supported by family
and friends, and government oversight completely failed. It
was a perfect storm. Many Americans expect the govern-
ment to make them whole after a natural disaster. Many
Americans expect the government to help them find new
employment after they have lost their jobs in an economic
downturn. It is hardly surprising that Madoff’s victims
would expect government help.

The investors most involved in efforts to recover what they
had lost, particularly those using the media and the courts to
press their case, were in almost every instance those most
unwilling to acknowledge that they had been victimized. They
were those who most behaved like victims—believing that
those who had not shared their fate were not only uncaring and
lacked empathy—but had the most difficulty coming to terms
with the fact that they had, indeed, been victimized. They
needed comfort; they had little need for understanding. They
turned to others who also needed comfort. They professed
their goodness—their penchant for hard work, their frugality,
and their generosity. They were the first to turn on the
government and to belittle government officials. They often
claimed that those who were making efforts to assist them

were not expending enough effort on their behalf. They most
likely listened to the advice of attorneys regardless of how
questionable it appeared to be. When asked about this
assessment, one activist (Client #146) unhesitatingly shot
back: “Sure I’m bitter. You would be too. And I’ll continue to
be even if every cent is returned. I shouldn’t have had to beg
for it. It’s mine, after all. How would you feel? Someone
should have come to me; that would have been fairer.” Client
#66, while expressing no bitterness, wondered why “everyone
took so much enjoyment in piling on…. Before this happened
I would do everything for anyone even before looking at my
own needs.” And she asked: “I wonder where everybody is
today?” Client #128(C) wrote: “I had felt very depressed for
many, many months. It was hard to accept such losses. I felt
that I had lost my identity, along with my self-respect. People
judge you by what material things you have in your
possession, your lifestyle, your money, and that is how they
determine your status in the world. I felt crushed and
anonymous, as if I had become transparent, and just didn’t
count anymore.” His wife (Client #124(C)) wrote to the court
about her “fear and anxiety,” “major depression” daily, and,
elsewhere, about how she “thought that suicide was the only
answer to stopping the pain.”

Although their distrust of others did not appear to be
greater than that of victims who were more likely to accept
their new circumstances, they were generally more unfor-
giving. They were clearly among the most rigid of the
victims, but there is no way of ascertaining if this was
characteristic of them before they had lost their savings to
Madoff. A number were very self involved. It would seem
their victimization had not only unsettled them financially,
but it had badly bruised self images.

Absence of Government Assistance

Most victims not only did not receive concrete help from
the government, but they could not even get government
representatives to respond to their questions or appeals.
Writing to the court in 2009, Client #126(C) seemed
inconsolable: “It is our money he [Madoff] is using to
continue to benefit himself. I am broke—robbed by the
Madoff gang.” A year later only the focus, not the extent of
her anger, had changed: “I spend hours each week on the
phone with legislators in an attempt to recover the major
source of monies available to me—taxes paid for two
decades of fraudulent 1099 income.”

Additional Setbacks

Along with multiplying financial problems, a number of
victims report health problems overwhelming them or their

170 Soc (2011) 48:159–173



spouse or both. There is no way, of course, of generally
ascertaining how much their being victims of Madoff’s
Ponzi scheme contributed to acute or chronic health
problems, but in some cases a connection seems very
obvious.

Client #23: “Oh that [“your health”] is a big one…. You
sure you want to ask?... Well I am at the age of a woman’s
change and my body was already going through a lot and
then with the added stress it went into a tailspin…. I was
diagnosed with melanoma 9 months later and 13 months
later had a severe reaction to environmental toxins (immune
system down) and basically had to live in a bubble for
6 months and try to heal (which I am, yeah….) and then
after 15 months [of pain] in my lower back that had me in
bed for 2 months…. So now I am 1 month into a fairly
healed body and have a whole new appreciation and lust for
life…. I realized I was holding so much stress inside of me
and emotions that it really almost took me out…. I had
always dealt with challenges and life traumas before so I
was damned if I was going to be a victim…. I had to be a
survivor…. My husband was awesome but he became
really sick about 6 months ago due to the stress…. He was
just always there for me listening to me cry, listening to my
anger [to] help and encourage me to go back to my old
job…. He always offered to help with whatever needed to
be done but it took its toll.”

Client #50: “My health is very poor and has been going
downhill with worry, frustration, and fear as I will pay for
my last few months of surgeries, medical expenses, and
chemo therapy, which I am about to start. I tell myself,
though I’m certainly not ready to do so, that it would be
easier if I just died. At least then I could leave something to
my two remaining sons, of which we had five…. The last
2 years I have been unable to pay for this [an insurance
policy] and I will probably have to give it up, losing all
those years of very high premiums, leaving them with
nothing but my home, which is modest and which I can no
longer afford to keep up as it should be and always was. Is
it any wonder my health has declined?”

Client #69(A): “Our home went into foreclosure. My
husband began drinking heavily and we are now in the
process of getting divorced…. After losing everything I
ended up breaking everything in my ankle and leg while
hunting because we need meat for the winter. The following
winter my husband fell off a ladder breaking his back while
trying to remove large icicles off the edge of our roof
because we couldn’t afford snow removal any longer for
the valleys of our roof. My fibromyalgia and chronic
fatigue syndrome increased immensely and now I have
developed neuropathy in my hands and feet and have a lot
of pain from my bionic ankle. I can’t get the medical help I
really need due to [the] shortage of money. Some of the
drugs I was on are not covered by Medicare and too

expensive for me. My ex-husband is quite ill but continues
to plow through working.”

In answer to the question, “have things turned out better,
about the same, or worse…?” she responded: “Worse
because of the divorce after 36 years. I’m living on
$2,000 per month and am disabled. I can’t afford the
medications I need. If there is any recovery I’m told our
portion would be $80,000 in 3–5 years. But we have so
many attorneys working on it as a group that I’m sure
they’ll end up with it all. By then I’ll be 70 and probably
will have passed on. I can barely afford my little pet….
Both of us didn’t have our annual exam this year. We spent
it on existing medical bills.”

Client #125(C) writing on behalf of her elderly
parents, both children of immigrants, told of their myriad
illnesses, including heart disease, diabetes, kidney dis-
ease, hip fractures, and hypertension, all made worse “by
the stress induced by the loss of all their money.” Since
Madoff’s arrest her father suffered a heart attack and a
stroke and her mother is being treated for depression,
while both “parents are scared and nervous every single
day.” The daughter’s observation, that because of Madoff
her parent’s “lives have become circumscribed,” is
clearly an understatement.

Client #88: “My life was shattered in 2008, first with the
loss of my dear sister and her husband in October. My loyal
canine companion …died. Then on December 11, 2008, I
received a call…about my retirement money. I can hardly
explain how this affected me, rage, depression, fighting
with my husband…. My mental health was at a breakdown,
I could not leave the house, I cried constantly. I had to be
under a doctor’s care. I never felt as violated as I did that
day when the call came. Then I was hearing that it would
be years before this could be sorted out, hiring a lawyer,
costly, useless…. I was completely obsessed with all things
Madoff, writing letters, calling people who I thought might
be able to assist me. [I spent much time] writing to [the
judge], filing my forms with [the trustee], along with filing
forms for hardship and SIPC assistance. Each reply I
received did not offer up much consolation. Then in
February 2009 I felt a lump in my right breast [and] I was
diagnosed in March 2009 as Stage 2 then upgraded to Stage
3 breast cancer. Through 2009 I underwent chemo, went
bald, felt near death, underwent a right breast mastectomy
along with regular and oral radiation from March 2009 until
now [late July 2010]. I am still looking at more surgery. My
financial situation has been a nightmare…. I lost an
investment property at no profit because of the economic
climate. ([It] nearly was foreclosed on.) No one in the
banking industry wanted to help out with a hardship loan
situation. There was no one to help us, we felt abandoned
by our government and still do. I have received no help
from my government despite folders full of letters to the

Soc (2011) 48:159–173 171



president, senators, congressmen and women…. I would
like to have an official e-mail to where my experiences are
headed. I failed also to tell you that my husband who is 72
has ESLS (end stage liver disease). I am 63 with breast
cancer. We want our money back…. We all suffered and
still do suffer under the Madoff fraud.” It should be added
that some months earlier Client #88 had written: “The
devastation that Bernard Madoff has brought into my life
has erased all thoughts of man being inherently good.”

The Greeks taught us that when we believe we are better
than our fates a bitter ending is inevitable. The Madoff drama
had a one-man Greek chorus, Harry Markopolos, warning all
who would listen that there was not going to be a happy ending.

Appendix: Nine Victims Speak on TV after Madoff
Sentencing

“What did you feel when he said, ‘I’m sorry for what I
did?’”

“I didn’t believe it.”
“I think he’s sorry he got caught.”
“I didn’t believe it when he said he was sorry.”
“I didn’t believe it, because he has to say he’s sorry.”
“When he stood up and put his hands behind his back

and got handcuffed, I felt about 5 seconds of joy.”
“[X], when you heard that he was remanded, that his bail

was revoked, did that give you any sense of satisfaction that
he would not go back to that penthouse on the Upper East
Side and that he was going straight to jail?”

“It’s not going to make me any wealthier how he gets
punished, but in thinking about the situation, I think that he
thinks he’s getting away with murder if he’s the only one
who’s gonna go to jail in his family.”

“We are in our own jails right now because of his
actions.”

“So that he’s in jail on one hand is, yes, he belongs there,
but we need to try to help ourselves get out of our jail now.”

“We’re just at the very beginning of untangling the legal,
financial, and taxation web that he’s left behind.”

“Can you tell us how your life has changed since
December 11th [2008]?”

“December 11th, the same day he turned himself in, we
had sent in a check to buy a condo in an active-retirement
community, and then the news broke.”

“Now we’re worrying about having to pay the bills, from
never thinking twice about it—if we wanted something, we
could get it.”

“My family members are in dire straits.”
“My aunt and uncle in South Florida are in their 80s.”
“They’re quite ill.”
“They have been turned down for food stamps because

their Social Security is too high.”

“We no longer spend any discretionary expenses.”
“That’s gone.”
“But the bills keep coming in.”
“And now I have to sell—we have to sell—our

apartment in this market.”
“I have no income coming in.”
“I’ve had to move in with a parent.”
“My apartment is up for sale in Florida and, as you

know, at 52 years old, to have to move back….”
“You all have told me—or the majority—you believe

there is a misconception out there about the Madoff
victims. Tell our viewers what that misconception is.”

“The perception is that they’re just wealthy, greedy
people.”

“It’s not true.”
“We’ve got professional people—doctors, lawyers,

bankers—and we also have blue collar workers.”
“Plumbers.”
“Exactly, those unions.”
“And we’ve got, you know, interior decorators.”
“We’ve got people who are self-employed.”
“We’ve got a lot of teachers, people who just had their

life savings.”
“Not huge amounts, but it was theirs.”
“Is there a lesson here that you’d like to share with

anyone?”
“Basically, your question is: What could we have done

differently?”
“And you look back, and you say you really can’t.”
“I looked at the SIPC stamp on the reports.”
“My parents had been in it for 20 years.”
“I mean, most times when there’s a fraud, everybody

knows; it comes out fairly quickly.”
“The money—the guy disappears; he runs away.”
“That wasn’t the case here.”
“This was long-standing, supposedly a successful firm

blessed by the SEC.”
“Do you blame [the SEC] most?”
“Absolutely.”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely.”
“This is what they’re commissioned to do, and how do

[you] expect them to find any fraud if they cannot find the
biggest, most blatant fraud that there is?”“If he was sitting
where I am right now, what would you say to Mr. Madoff?”

“What happened?”
“How did you think that you were gonna keep doing

this, and did you ever stop to think about the ramifications
and what you’ve done to so many thousands of people?”

This exchange fairly accurately captures the thinking of
most Madoff victims in the months following his sentencing.
Most striking is how decisive they were in apportioning blame

172 Soc (2011) 48:159–173



to others, and how certain they were that nothing they might
have done would have prevented them from being harmed so
gravely by Madoff. Their attention had quickly turned from
themselves, and, in fact, from Madoff, to the government
which had abetted him, which made his crime possible. They
had granted themselves sufficient moral authority and had
positioned themselves to ask that the government take
extraordinary steps to make them whole. While their
campaign was gaining focus and momentum, the public was

growing indifferent, having steadily lost interest in the matter
once Madoff was in prison.

Lionel S. Lewis (A.B., Washington University; M.A., Cornell
University; Ph.D., Yale University) is professor emeritus of sociology,
SUNY/Buffalo. He is the author of 5 books and the author or co-
author of 130 research articles, essays, and reviews, a number
published in SOCIETY. This article is the fourth and final one in a
planned series on the Madoff Ponzi scheme.

Soc (2011) 48:159–173 173


	After Madoff: Waiting for Justice
	“On Cooling the Mark Out”
	Challenging the SIPC
	The Trustee
	And Suing the Trustee
	Suing the SEC
	A Touch of Greed and Fragile Egos
	Absence of Government Assistance
	Additional Setbacks
	Appendix: Nine Victims Speak on TV after Madoff Sentencing

















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    /NOR <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>
    /PTB <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>
    /SUO <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>
    /SVE <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>
    /ENU (Use these settings to create Adobe PDF documents best suited for on-screen display, e-mail, and the Internet.  Created PDF documents can be opened with Acrobat and Adobe Reader 5.0 and later.)
    /DEU <FEFF004a006f0062006f007000740069006f006e007300200066006f00720020004100630072006f006200610074002000440069007300740069006c006c0065007200200037000d00500072006f006400750063006500730020005000440046002000660069006c0065007300200077006800690063006800200061007200650020007500730065006400200066006f00720020006f006e006c0069006e0065002e000d0028006300290020003200300031003000200053007000720069006e006700650072002d005600650072006c0061006700200047006d006200480020>
  >>
  /Namespace [
    (Adobe)
    (Common)
    (1.0)
  ]
  /OtherNamespaces [
    <<
      /AsReaderSpreads false
      /CropImagesToFrames true
      /ErrorControl /WarnAndContinue
      /FlattenerIgnoreSpreadOverrides false
      /IncludeGuidesGrids false
      /IncludeNonPrinting false
      /IncludeSlug false
      /Namespace [
        (Adobe)
        (InDesign)
        (4.0)
      ]
      /OmitPlacedBitmaps false
      /OmitPlacedEPS false
      /OmitPlacedPDF false
      /SimulateOverprint /Legacy
    >>
    <<
      /AddBleedMarks false
      /AddColorBars false
      /AddCropMarks false
      /AddPageInfo false
      /AddRegMarks false
      /ConvertColors /ConvertToRGB
      /DestinationProfileName (sRGB IEC61966-2.1)
      /DestinationProfileSelector /UseName
      /Downsample16BitImages true
      /FlattenerPreset <<
        /PresetSelector /MediumResolution
      >>
      /FormElements false
      /GenerateStructure false
      /IncludeBookmarks false
      /IncludeHyperlinks false
      /IncludeInteractive false
      /IncludeLayers false
      /IncludeProfiles true
      /MultimediaHandling /UseObjectSettings
      /Namespace [
        (Adobe)
        (CreativeSuite)
        (2.0)
      ]
      /PDFXOutputIntentProfileSelector /NA
      /PreserveEditing false
      /UntaggedCMYKHandling /UseDocumentProfile
      /UntaggedRGBHandling /UseDocumentProfile
      /UseDocumentBleed false
    >>
  ]
>> setdistillerparams
<<
  /HWResolution [2400 2400]
  /PageSize [595.276 841.890]
>> setpagedevice