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Bernie Madoff's Programmers Arrested

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the what-corporate-veil dept.

ZipK writes "With their former boss cooling his heels on a 150-year sentence, programmers Jerome O'Hara and George Perez are now in the US Attorney's crosshairs. They've been arrested and charged with criminal conspiracy, and 'accused of producing false documents and trading records at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in New York.' Apparently Madoff's fraud was too large and too complex to be foisted entirely by hand."

6 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. Moral of the story: by alecto · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you destroy evidence, make sure you destroy the backups, too.

    1. Re:Moral of the story: by OnlineAlias · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, the problem is they were sending out statements. Those statements were theoretically based on input from the markets, after the amounts were made bigger by the black box which was Madoff's investment "strategy". Once the black box was determined to be a fraud, the programmers were done, because they implemented the black box. At that point ,no amount of deleting was going to get them out of being implicated.

  2. But by Dunbal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So tell me, when are they going to go after the programmers at Goldman Sachs?

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    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    1. Re:But by dkleinsc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's easy: when there is evidence that they committed a crime.

      Goldman Sachs's behavior is probably completely legal (that doesn't mean it's morally right, just legal). Also, it's extremely unlikely that programmers working in the bowels of the big investment banks (GS, MS, BoA) are in on any lawbreaking that does occur.

      It seems like these guys made several stupid mistakes:
      - Being loyal to Madoff et al once they knew what was going on.
      - Being willing to lie to the FBI and/or SEC.
      - Taking big bonuses to keep their mouth shut.
      - Staying in the country after the house of cards fell apart.

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      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
  3. Re:Right after the revolution by Enderandrew · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I hate articles filled with lies.

    Buffet routinely lobbied against the bailout legislation.

    Buffet did lobby for bailouts of a different nature, in which the government would get voting stock in the companies they bailed out, there were clear stipulations on where money was spent (so it didn't go into pockets like his), and there was massive accountability.

    When Buffet bailed out GE, he laid out such a framework and encouraged the government to follow suit. And while Buffet has a high personal worth because of stock he owns, he has always been know to live frugally, and is now giving away the massive bulk of his wealth.

    However Buffet is a known conservative, so a liberally-slanted website is all but obligated to go on a character assassination for no good reason. (I'm neither Republican nor Democrat. I just hate lying. If anything, I support true liberalism, in which there is less government restriction period, and personal liberties are protected as much as possible).

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    http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
  4. Re:Right after the revolution by ShatteredArm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Buffett is a Democrat.

    And yes, Buffett did benefit from the bailouts... Not to mention Buffett recently tried to back Goldman's recent proposal to buy tax credits from Fannie Mae. He's not the boogeyman, but he's not the nice, friendly man with a sincere belief in capitalism that he is sometimes made out to be.