Madoff did not have an exit strategy?

[C......N......C]

I did some work for a guy that turned out to be a multi million dollar drug dealer. His operation was watched and finally busted by the Government. They said that they watched me working rebuilding his boat at the shipyard. When the feces hit the fan he was gone and never heard of again. That was 20 years ago. Why didn't Madoff have a plan? Do the ones that get caught think they are insulated and above the law?

[NV Whino]

1. I'm quite sure he had an exit strategy

and bank accounts to implement it. He simply got greedy and waited too long. Trying to get in "just one more deal" doncha know.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. agreed. then his exit strategy became protect the sons and wife

[MineralMan]

2. Oh, he probably had one, but didn't have time to implement it.

So...all that money he stashed offshore isn't going to do him any good, now. He'll die in prison, and probably in not too many years. I'm hopeful that the global economic situation forces the Swiss and other "secret" banks to reveal their depositors' names to the courts when compelled to do so.

If that happens, we may well find a lot of money that is liable to forfeiture. Into the treasury it goes. We're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars stashed away, I have no doubt.

[AndyTiedye]

3. I Figured He'd Pull a "Ken Lay"

[Vinca]

4. What I don't understand about Madoff is why he didn't "vanish"

the second he was suspected of wrongdoing. Surely he could have paid some petty dictator for protection somewhere. It would be better than a life in prison eating creamed corn with Charlie Manson.

[lurky]

6. Maybe he thought he had enough connections to

get away with it. Look at Stanford -- he hasn't even been arrested yet, has he?

[anigbrowl]

12. No, he hasn't, but that's not so unusual

The SEC often brings a civil suit before any criminal proceedings are initiated. Financial lawsuits/crimes tend to be very long and complex, and the burden of proof is lighter in a civil trial than a criminal one. So often the civil trial will go ahead first, and once those facts are in the court record they can be used in the criminal trial too - whereas a criminal trial that doesn't result in a conviction may mean throwing the case out and starting over for any civil action.

Bear in mind that in a typical criminal trial the issue is whether the defendant took a particular action or not, and you might have witnesses and forensic evidence. In a financial case the questions are much more complex, eg establishing what was legal or not, did the defendant break the law accidentally or willfully, were financial losses the result of malice or simple incompetence etc.

Proving criminality is a lot more difficult as there's rarely any smoking gun letter or email saying 'yuk yuk, broke the law again and made even more money LOL SEC SUX!!!'. It might seem obvious that the guy is No Good, but it's easy to forget that leveling charges or accusations is not at all the same as proving them in court.

[C......N......C]

8. Right, he had enough money to be second in command in a lot of

countries. He could have really been high up. I know it is morally wrong to speculate like this, but it just bewilders me.

[Earth_First]

7. Madoff's exit strategy was McCain...

under "business as usual" he would have had at least another two years to wind this down and make off into the night before 2012.

[leftofthedial]

9. his sons turned him in

His "exit" strategy is to set up his progeny with stashes of enormous wealth. It's a "genetic" getaway.

[C......N......C]

10. I like to scrutinize and I wonder how his son

could be in the same type of business and not say. " Hey dad, how about showing me how to make a couple of billion and be a big star like You". It is just ont comprehend-able that the whole family wasn't in the know. Of course I also don't think that Oswald could have pulled off those shots.

[soothsayer]

11. He essentially turned HIMSELF in. I think he was in too deep and saw the Feds as protection.