Who is Bernie Madoff, and how did he pull off the biggest Ponzi scheme in history?
These questions have fascinated people ever since the news broke about the respected New York financier who swindled his friends, relatives, and other investors out of $65 billion through a fraud that lasted for decades. Many have speculated about what might have happened or what must have happened, but no reporter has been able to get the full story—until now.
In The Wizard of Lies, Diana B. Henriques of The New York Times—who has led the paper’s coverage of the Madoff scandal since the day the story broke—has written the definitive book on the man and his scheme, drawing on unprecedented access and more than one hundred interviews with people at all levels and on all sides of the crime, including Madoff’s first interviews for publication since his arrest. Henriques also provides vivid details from the various lawsuits, government investigations, and court filings that will explode the myths that have come to surround the story.
A true-life financial thriller, The Wizard of Lies contrasts Madoff's remarkable rise on Wall Street, where he became one of the country’s most trusted and respected traders, with dramatic scenes from his accelerating slide toward self-destruction. It is also the most complete account of the heartbreaking personal disasters and landmark legal battles triggered by Madoff’s downfall—the suicides, business failures, fractured families, shuttered charities—and the clear lessons this timeless scandal offers to Washington, Wall Street, and Main Street.
"Riveting reading . . . [Henriques] probably knows more than anyone outside the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission about the mechanics of the fraud. As a consequence, in The Wizard of Lies she is able to add significant detail to the story . . . In the end the story holds us not because of the engrossing details of the scam, but because of the human dimension."—Liaquat Ahamed, The New York Times Book Review
"Henriques offers an impressive, meticulously reported postmortem not only of the Ponzi scheme but also of Madoff's entire career . . . The Wizard of Lies is the definitive book on what Madoff did and how he did it."—Bloomberg Businessweek
"Entertaining . . . Cogent and well researched, The Wizard of Lies is an engaging narrative . . . [The book] reveals many moments where Madoff might have been stopped. But his investors were too trusting or too greedy to ask the right questions and U.S. regulators were too cowed and too disorganised."—Financial Times (UK)
Diana B. Henriques is the author of The White Sharks of Wall Street and Fidelity’s World. She is a senior financial writer for The New York Times, having joined the Times staff in 1989. A Polk Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist, she has won several awards for her work on the Times’s coverage of the Madoff scandal and was part of the team recognized as a Pulitzer finalist for its coverage of the financial crisis of 2008. She lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.
1
An Earthquake on Wall Street
Monday, December 8, 2008
He is ready to stop now, ready to just let his vast fraud tumble down around him.
Despite his confident posturing and his apparent imperviousness to the increasing market turmoil, his investors are deserting him. The Spanish banking executives who visited him on Thanksgiving Day still want to withdraw their money.
Cast of Characters xi Prologue xvii 1. An Earthquake on Wall Street 1 2. Becoming Bernie 24 3. The Hunger for Yield 42 4. The Big Four 57 5. The Cash Spigot 71 6. What They Wanted to Believe 92 7. Warning Signs 116 8. A Near-Death Experience 139 9. Madoff's World 160 10. The Year of Living Dangerously 181 11. Waking Up in the Rubble 210 12. Reckoning the Damage 231 13. Net Winners and Net Losers 254 14. The Sins of the Father 270 15. The Wheels of Justice 292 16. Hope, Lost and Found 313Epilogue 332Notes 349 Acknowledgments 401 Index 405
Diana B. Henriques Interviewed on The New York Times Weekend Business Podcast
New York Times financial writer Diana B. Henriques was the first journalist to interview Bernie Madoff after he was sent to prison. Henriques' new book, The Wizard of Lies, details how Madoff created the biggest Ponzi scheme in history after playing a prominent role in shaping modern markets.
Diana B. Henriques, New York Times senior financial writer who’s covered the Madoff scandal since the story broke, gives a full account of Bernie Madoff and his $65 billion Ponzi scheme—from his Wall Street rise to the personal disasters and landmark legal battles triggered by his downfall—and looks at the lessons this scandal offers to Washington, Wall Street, and Main Street.
New York Times journalist Diana Henriques is the only reporter to interview Bernie Madoff twice from prison. In her new book 'The Wizard of Lies' Henriques provides vivid details of the events that led up to, and followed, the largest Ponzi scheme in history.
Diana B. Henriques Interviewed on The Today Show
The detailed story behind Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, with Diana Henriques, The New York Times writer.
Diana B. Henriques Interviewed On The Dylan Ratigan Show
Author Diana Henriques on her latest book, 'The Wizard Of Lies.'
Diana B. Henriques joins Laura Flanders in studio for a conversation about Madoff, Wall Street, and the ways ordinary people get ripped off by complex financial schemes.
Diana B. Henriques, author of "The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust," discusses her book which details the rise and fall Bernie Madoff.
Diana B. Henriques Interviewed On Morning Joe.
Diana B. Henriques Details Bernie Madoff's Fall Into Massive Financial Fraud.
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