Bernard Madoff

"I think Americans are hungry for spirituality," said one attendee, Chaim Miller, who is editor of Kol Menachem, a series of books and tractates incorporating the teaching of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. "We just need to get away from our persecution complex." "I had the great benefit of having the sociopath of the generation as a member of my board of trustees," he said, referring to Madoff.

Read more: 'We've message to non-Jews, but don't share it' | In this article: Judaism, UN, Yeshiva University, Joseph Telushkin, and The Jerusalem Post

"No." They were always given to Jeffrey Tucker, a Fairfield Greenwich principal who gave them this mumbo jumbo about a split-strike conversion strategy. Anyone who said, "Look, I'm not comfortable unless I meet and talk with Madoff myself" generally was told, "You can take your money and find another fund."

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"You want to convince me that the agency which allowed Madoff to run a giant Ponzi scheme could improve on what the credit agencies do?" said Zvi Bodie, a finance professor at Boston University's School of Management.

Read more: Analysts question SEC as credit agencies' policeman | In this article: SEC, Moody's Corp, and Stern School of Business

"The investigation found that the SEC received more than ample information in the form of detailed and substantive complaints over a period of many years to warrant a thorough and comprehensive examination," of Madoff's firm for operating a Ponzi scheme, the report said. Kotz said the agency conducted three examinations and two investigations of Madoff and his firm, but never performed a "thorough and competent"

Read more: SEC watchdog: revamp exam process post-Madoff | In this article: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and U.S.

"The sales of the Madoff assets far exceeded all expectations, which equates to more money that will go back to the victims involved in the Madoff case," said Neil DeSousa, the acting US Marshal in south Florida.

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Two sentences later, Madoff said, "When I began the Ponzi scheme, I believed it would end shortly and I would be able to extricate myself and my clients from the scheme." As he read this, he betrayed no sense of how absurd it was to use the passive voice in regard to his scheme, as if it were a spell of bad weather that had descended on him. . . . In most of the rest of the statement, one not only heard the aggrieved passive voice but felt the hand of a lawyer: "To the best of my recollection, my fraud began in the early nineteen-nineties."

Read more: English passive voice | In this article: John F. Kennedy, The Elements of Style, George Orwell, E.B. White, House of Commons, and William Strunk, Jr.

" "If you're looking at a Ponzi scheme, it's the first thing you do," Madoff said.

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"It was a nightmare for me," Madoff said, because his scheme "was very basic stuff."

Read more: SEC documents describe Madoff as shocked agency failed to catch him earlier | In this article: Bernard L. Madoff, SEC, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, New York, and North Carolina

"I had a European bank, I was doing forward conversion, they were doing reverse conversion," Madoff said.

Read more: Madoff said he had a legitimate strategy gone wrong | In this article: SEC, New York, and Houston Chronicle

"The less that you know about how we do so on and so forth the better you are," Madoff says. Madoff tells his pupils that no one in his office sees how he trades. "I'm the only one that can make the decision in our organization as to when to get in or out of the market,"

Read more: From The Horse's Mouth: Madoff Phone Call Released | In this article: SEC, E mail, Dorsey & Whitney LLP, US, Manhattan, Wall Street, NEW YORK, and Massachusetts