marc, and his wife ruth reacted to bernie madoff illegal activities. this is about half an hour. >> hello. i'm here to welcome you to diesel bookstore. .. >> to read the next episode of what had happened. um, so as the story unfolded, i was thinking, well, this is like

a greek tragedy. this was amazing and, you know, if only we had escalus here to write about it. and later on we got more information about it and the victims, we got information about some of the people who had invested with the madoffs, i started thinking, no, shakespeare should have done this, only shakespeare could write this fully. well, now, sometime later -- three years later -- here we are, and i came across laurie sandell's book. and i want to say that it's utterly fascinating. i mean, we thought we knew everything, but we didn't. and just reading about the family and finding out that even

though bernie madoff is kind of ab sent from the book -- absent from the book because you didn't interview him, but you at least i as a reader, i will say i realize this man was a bully, and he bullied his wife and sons. and so they got to the point that they were afraid to ask him questions. they certainly never -- he didn't answer their questions. um, and so there's a whole psychological element that laurie managed to get into this book that just was never in the newspapers. and i want to say that i think the madoff family was incredibly lucky to pick laurie sandell because of all the possible journalists who could have written this book, she is the best because she herself grew up

with a con man in her life. so i now present to you someone who really knows what she's talking about, laurie sandell. [applause] >> thank you so much for that very generous and wonderful introduction. and thank you, diesel: a bookstore, for having me today. i just want to tell you a little bit about how this book came to be, and then i'm going to read a chapter from the book. in september of 2009, a book that i had written called "the imposter's daughter "about my own father and his cons and deceptions came out. and i was reading at a bookstore much like this, and backstage signing books a woman approached me and said, you know, i can't believe you're here, i can't believe your story and introduced herself as the fiancee of andrew madoff. that, of course, my jaw dropped. this was a year after the scandal, and i had been

following it like everybody else. and, um, i came to know the family over the course of two years. like so many people that had been following the story, i, of course, thought that andrew was most likely involved, that he and his brother had known all about his father. i was convinced that ruth had to have known, and it was only really prudent curiosity that sort of brought me into this story. i was a journalist, and i wanted to get to the truth of this story like every other journalist out there and most of the people in the public. and so when i was, you know, when it came time that they were ready to write a book and i sat down with them and was taken into the heart of their story, i was absolutely astonished to find that nothing i thought i knew was true. so i'm just going to read to you from the chapter of the confession itself. and we'll go. the confession. by 6:50 a.m. andrew and mark were, once again, perch inside the conference room behind the trading floor. they shot each other tense,

worried looks, periodically breaking the silence to offer a new theory. something was terribly wrong. by 8:00 a.m., peter still hadn't arrived. mark shook his head. let's wait at our desks. ruth, according to court filings, had taken out some 15 million in two separate withdrawals from her brokerage account in the prior three weeks. bernie had asked her to move the money in her wachovia bank account so he could use it to cover redemptions. she did his bidding unquestioningly, something the media claimed as proof of her involvement, but then the family moved millions of dollars around all the time buying boats and apartments, making large wire transfers and donations to philanthropic organizations. bernie would have barked at ruth, and that would have been the end of the conversation. it wasn't until 9:20 a.m. that andrew spotted peter making his way across the trading floor. peter is bernie's brother. um, he signaled to mark, and

they hurried into the conference room. andrew felt the back of his neck grow hot with anticipation. peter stood by the door, his mouth a grim line. i talked to your father. it's bad. he wants to talk to you himself, he said. andrew's stomach dropped. he knew that his uncle tended to put a positive spin on things. the brothers pushed their chairs back and followed their uncle onto the trading floor. they passed their colleagues shouting orders at the desk, a row of administrative offices, a cluster of secretaries, a large conference room. the walk seemed to take forever. when they arrived at bernie's executive office, they found him sitting behind his desk leaning back in his chair staring at a it's set mounted on the -- television set mounted on the ceiling. he didn't greet them. andrew and peter took the two chairs facing bernie, mark sat on the couch to the leavitt. for a few minutes, the four sat in silence. i don't know where to begin, bernie began. andrew felt a river of alarm

rise through his chest. he glanced at mark. he was studying bernie intensely. let's not do this right at your main desk, peter suggested. let's move to the table in the corner. the four gathered at the far end of the room where a wall offered a shade more privacy. again, bernie started to talk and couldn't continue. dumbfounded, andrew watched his father struggle for words. i can't do this here, bernie finally said. andrew looked at his father feeling as though he had entered, quote, the world of the surreal. what could possibly be so bad that he couldn't even discuss it at the office? why don't we go to your apartment, andrew suggested. are we all going up there, mark asked. bernie cleared his throat. no, peter, you stay here and run the show. the coat closet was right outside bernie's office. as the three struggled into their winter gear, bernie said to his secretary, have lee bring the car around. where the hell you going, the market is open, eleanor joked. mind your own business, bernie

snapped, immediately silencing eleanor who stared at her computer. andrew, mark and bernie rode the elevator down in silence, then waited for lee in the vast lobby of the lipstick building watching the rain across the revolving doors. there was no small talk. andrew tried to blend into his surroundings wishing he could be teleported to his parents' apartment so he could get whatever was going to happenover happenover -- happen over with. the car pulled up. they rode in silence. bernie sandwiched between his two sons misty-eyed and shaken, struggling to hold it together as though he'd already received bad news and was trying to cope with it, andrew says. andrew stared out the window at the early christmas shoppers, his brain a dead zone. clyde dropped them off in front of the entrance to ruth and bernie's penthouse apartment. the three removed their wet shoes in the foyer. they laid their coats across the

banister of the staircase taking care not to drip water onto the floor. ruth greeted them at the door, her face grim. she, too, had no idea why her husband had rushed home in the middle of the day to talk to her family, but like her sons, she suspected the news was bad, show connected to the mayhem on wall street. bernie had called her from the office and said i'm coming home with the boys. she'd gotten off the phone shaking and had waited for them in the kitchen. together, the family entered the sitting room with dark green walls, khaki carpeting and a heavy desk. bernie sat by himself on a large leather sofa. ruth sat next to the couch. andrew took the ottoman and mark the desk chair. the four faced one another sitting a considerable distance apart. i don't know where to start, bernie began again. the firm is insolvent, i'm broke. how is that possible, andrew asked, i don't understand. the money is gone, it's over.

i don't understand, andrew repeated. how can that be? we're having an okay year. what happened? is this about the redemptions? then bernie said something more terrible than they could have imagined. it's all been one big lie. it's a giant ponzi scheme, and there have been all these redemptions, and i can't keep it going anymore. i can't do it. andrew stared at his father, his mind a jumble of disconnected thoughts and phrases. he was trying to piece together what his father was saying, but the sentences kept evaporating. he grabbed at them, frustrated, as they continued to disappear. ruth lit a cigarette. her hand shook. what's a ponzi scheme? it means the asset management business was a fake, andrew said. i've been lying to all of you for years. i've been lying to your mother, to you, to the customers, i've been lying to myself. i have an appointment to meet with ike sorkin on monday referring to the family lawyer, and i'm probably going to jail. he broke down then, really sobbing. andrew rose from the ottoman, crossed the room and awkwardly

draped an arm around his father for a few seconds. at that, andrew started to cry too. he got up and returned ott ottoman. through his tears he said, but there was all this money. where did it go? the money is gone. i've got 50 million in liabilities. his voice trailed off. andrew stopped. 50 million? 50 billion. andrew now glanced at his brother who hadn't yet said a word. he recognized that look. mark's face was red, his jaw clenched, a vein worked in his temple. i still don't understand. how is all this going to unfold, andrew asked, his mind racing to process what it all meant, how it was going to affect him, what was going to happen. i've got 100 million in cash left, certain accounts i'm going to redeem with that money, friends and family. i have a large redemption coming next week, that's when it's going to unravel. >> what about susie west? what about roger's widow, jen? are they going to get their money back? i'm doing my best.

i have a list of people -- wait, andrew interrupted. how can you even do that? they're not going to keep that must be. they will, bernie explained, and patiently started to outline other situations where firms had failed and investors were made whole. andrew stopped him, sickened, not wanting to hear more. how long has this been going on? oh, god, it's been going on for years. much has been made of when the fraud started, and the truth is no one really knows. bernie started the firm in the '60s. the records from that time are thin. even modern regulatory requirements don't require records that go beyond six years. bernie claims the ponzi scheme began in 1992, any questionable behavior before then was at worst a gray area involving synthetic trades to defray income tax costs for his most important clients. and there is evidence that he executed actual trades into the '80s. but whether it started when bernie said it did or much earlier, only bernie knows. what's going to happen to us?

i've been doing the math, and at the end of the day the amount of money i've taken out and pulled out over the years is about a wash. mark stood up, this is bullshit, he yelled, i'm out of here. i'm going with him, andrew said. i'm leaving, he repeated. okay, let's go, andrew said. he followed his brother into the elevator and out into the fall drizzle. clyde stuck his head out the window. what am i doing? andrew shouted into the wind, the old man is still upstairs, you're waiting for him. mark had already stepped off the curb and hailed a cab. andrew slid onto the street next to his brother. the cab driver turned around, where to? just drive. the driver started to inch down lexington avenue. andrew felt grateful, it would buy him time to think. he turned to mark. what do we do? we need a lawyer right now. how? what do we do? walk into the lobby and scream, help? andrew asked, referring to the

white shoe firm famous in corporate law. no. we need a real lawyer, a criminal defense one. let's call marty. he'll know what to do. mark's father-in-law, marty london, was a retired senior litigator at paul weiss. he'd represented spir rue ago knew and jackie kennedy. he and his wife were staying at the beekman tower hotel while their apartment was being renovated. mark leaned into the partition. take us to 49th street and first avenue. the car turned left. stephanie, what are you doing right now? get her out of there. he listened, his face going red. make an excuse, just get her out of there. mark and andrew rode the rest of the way in silence, each in his own world of fear. ruth sat at the banquet in her kitchen. bernie had returned to the office. there had been no agonizing embraces or recriminations. he'd told her that he had two

more checks to deposit, that he was planning to go to the office in the morning to pay the traders. she'd nodded numbly, yes, yes, okay. after he left she sat there, a complete zombie. eventually, she rose and made her way into the bedroom to dress for the office christmas party which was scheduled for that night. for the occasion she'd bought a black prada blouse with silver detailing on the collar. as she fumbled with the small buttons, her fingers trembling, he had the thought, i'll never wear this again. she paired it with a black skirt and a pair of tall suede books with a heel. she'd never liked her legs. the thought of not attending didn't cross ruth's mind. of course she and bernie were going. before he'd left bernie had said, we have to show up and act like everything is fine. yes, she'd nodded again numbly, yes, okay. it was noon when andrew and mark entered marty london's suite at the beekman tower, though andrew felt as though he'd been slogging through that day for a

year. a pile of suitcases sat by the front door. marty greeted them. what happened? what the hell is going on? mark strode past his father-in-law into the room. andrew followed. now it was mark's turn to do the talking. my father just confess today a huge crime. he said his whole his is a ponzi scheme, that the firm is insolvent, and there's 50 million missing. 50 million, marty asked? no, 50 billion, mark said, in what would become a refrain. marty paused. oh, boy. i need to sit down. my whole retirement fund is with him. he recovered himself. but that's not important. tell me everything he said. andrew and mark repeated everything they could remember about the conversation they'd had with their father. do you think he's sane? do you think he was telling you the truth? well, yeah, andrew said. he wasn't just rambling. he wasn't having a psychotic break. marty sank into a chair by the dining room table. this is incredible. okay, we need -- [inaudible] who, mark asked? the firm's senior litigator and the only guy you want to talk to in this situation. he's got a ton of experience.

he picked up the phone and called his firm. get me -- [inaudible] after waiting on hold for a few minutes, marty heard him answer, and he launched into an abbreviated description of the events. my son-in-law and his brother are here, i need to see you now. it's urgent. how quickly can you get here. i'm up in connecticut, i can't come straight there. can you give me more information? his father just confess today a huge crime, and we need to talk about it right away, he urged. okay. i can be there by 3 p.m. marty turned to mark and andrew who by then were looking at him as their savior. okay. he's going to come with his associate, andrew. he's the firm's newest partner, one of the rising stars in the litigation area. the two of them are perfect. do what you've got to do, and let's meet back here at 3 p.m. andrew and mark left the beekman tower. they stood on the street peeling lost. they had two hours to kill. finally, mark said i'm going home, i've got to talk to stephanie. all right, andrew said.

i'm going back to the office. he walked back to the lipstick building. as he passed through the trading room, he saw his colleagues on the proprietary trading side of the floor working the phones. on the market making side, traders worked diligently at their desks absorbing numbers. andrew stared at their desks. he entered his office. his days had always been spent at his desk on the trading floor, and his private office wasn't a place he pent lots of -- cement lots of time -- spent lots of time. he just sat down and stared into space. peter popped his head in the door, are you okay? no, i'm not okay. yeah, i know, i know. this is awful. what are you doing? mark and i are meeting with an attorney at 3 p.m. okay. peter slipped away. andrew sat staring at the pictures of his kids behind his desk and at the various awards and honors he'd received. drained, frightened and exhausted, more than anything he was trying to understand what had happened.

$50 billion, the number didn't register. it was inconceivable. were it true, it would make blm's asset management business one of the largest hedge funds in the world. bridgewater, renaissance, none of them was even close to that size. he turned the day's events over and over in his head. his phone rank. it was katherine, his fiancee. should i get my hair done or not, she asked, sounding as if she was a million miles away. andrew had no idea what she was talking about. he struggled to remember if they'd spoken. for the party r we going? oh, yeah, yes. we're going. i think. i have to run. he walked out of his office without knowing that the next time he would return would be six months later accompanied by his attorneys and fbi so he could recover his personal effects. marty and andrew arrived at 3 p.m. sharp. marty was short and stout in his 50s. ehrlich was tall, slender and young.

the lawyers shrugged their arms out of their raincoats, both were wearing suits and ties. marty london immediately started to recap the story for his colleagues. are you familiar with bernie madoff? the boys told me he's running a ponzi scheme to the tune of $50 billion. 50 million, asked marty? billion, with a b. do you think he was crazy? no one from family members to the top lawyers in the country could wrap their head around the figure. it would dwarf the worldcom scandal. over the next hour marty asked andrew and mark to describe in depth who they were, their jobs at the firm, their relationship to their parents, their wives. he asked them repeatedly if they were involved in the fraud. we had no idea, they kept repeating. none whatsoever. we were completely blindsided. they wrapped up the story, and marty closed his notebook. we need to report this, and i'm

not even precisely sure how to do that. i want to bring in my partner and get his thoughts. he picked up the phone. the clock was ticking. it was already 5:00 p.m. the office was closed. they needed the get somebody on the phone, but it had to be the right person. he turned to andrew and mark, are you both comfortable doing this, he asked? there was a clear sense that marty was in charge. he knew the right thing to do and wasn't going to give them any other option but to do it. yes, let's do it, andrew said. let's do it, mark repeated. andrew looked at his brother. we're doing the right thing. mark nodded. reflecting on that moment today, andrew says i would love to say that mark and i were waving the flags of justice in the air, but the bottom line is we were absolutely terrified. we knew that what we were doing was going to send our father to jail, and the feeling was awful, absolutely awful. give me a minute, andrew said. he walked out of the living room and into the bedroom feeling his

knees crumble. sinking to the ground holding on to a radiator, he let out an enormous, racking sob that tore through his chest and burned his throat. gutterral animal sounds so alien he wasn't even sure they'd come from him. he clenched his stomach, trying not to vomit. when the sobs subsided, he wiped away his tears roughly and stood up on wobbly legs, returned to the living room and sat down. pulling out his phone, he sent katherine a text. we're definitely not going tonight. make the call, he said. with instructions to share nothing with their wives, andrew and mark left the hotel suite. without exchanging a word, they got into separate cabs. andrew headed uptown to the apartment he'd moved into two days earlier. he walked in the front door, turned into his bedroom and lay down on top of the bed. he was still wearing his overcoat, suit and shoes. for the next four hours he lay there completely numb while a live feed ran across his brain: i've just turned my father in

for securities fraud, he's going to go to jail. i have no idea what's going to happen with my life, my entire family is invested with him, every friend, many of the employees at the firm, everyone i know. who knows how many others. i just turned my father in for securities fraud, he's going to go to jail. as andrew stared at the ceiling, he racked his brain for some inkling he could have seen this coming. nothing came other than the image of his father rotting in jail because he and his brother had turned him in. he had no idea how much time had passed before katherine slipped into the room. she was an innocent woman with a beautiful daughter who brought so much joy into his life. he couldn't allow her to get sucked into this frenzy, it wasn't wasn't fair to her. she waited. her last moment of not knowing. he couldn't bear the thought of living if she left, he couldn't ask her to stay. andrew sat up, leaned over and turned on the light. you need to decide whether or not you want to stay with me. he doesn't remember what he said after that. but when andrew and katherine

crawled under the covers at the conclusion of the longest, most painful day of his life, katherine said something that would be forever seared into his memory. listen, i'm not going anywhere. wake me up if you need me, i'll be here all night. she wrapped her arounds around him. in that moment, he says, those words saved his life. he wouldn't have to face this alone. he has said those same words back to her every night since. weeks after bernie and ruth celebrated their 49th year of marriage, the couple went to the office christmas party. in a daze, ruth put one foot in the front of the other, smiled, had a glass of wine and left. beyond that, she doesn't remember a thing. the evening was lost forever to trauma and terror. she has no interest in getting it back. the only memory she cannot erase is the image of her son mark fleeing from her home, the golden child, the mama's boy who called her every day from college, who'd given her three beautiful grandchildren and the one on the way. it was the last vision ruth

would have of her son. she never saw him again. that's it. [applause] and i'm happy to take questions if anybody has questions about absolutely anything. >> i'll just start with the obvious question. >> okay. >> was anyone given -- [inaudible] >> well, that's a very good question, actually, bernie madoff, of course, is serving 150 years in prison at buttner correctional center. and ann crew has vowed never to -- andrew has vowed never to speak to his father again and has no knowledge. also ruth changed her number recently so bernie couldn't get in touch with her, and we have no knowledge of whether he's read the book. we assume he has because he's been very involved in anything that comes out about him. he reads it, he comments on it. so we'll see. >> [inaudible] >> i'm pursuing an interview with him, actually, so we'll

see. >> a new book? >> well, an article. a magazine article. >> [inaudible] >> okay. can you tell us any interesting things that have happened as you promoted the book or people came up to you or anything like that? >> that's a great question. um, basically, it has been a very interesting experience since the book came out. you know, i wasn't sure, obviously, this is an authorized biography. i would not put my name on the book if i didn't believe entirely in its contents, but it is a book that is sympathetic to the relatives of bernie madoff. and given the extent to which people's lives were destroyed, you know, there's so much anger, so much vitriol, so much hatred, so much sadness. there's just so much wrapped around this story that a lot of people have been unable to separate bernie's family from bernie himself. and i thought that there would probably be a lot of outcry, and

there has been a lot of outcry on the internet. i haven't personally been, you know, accosted or anything like that. there's also been, you know, very interestingly a lot of people that have had their minds changed. i mean, the night before my book came out, "60 minutes" did a piece on the book and on andrew and madoff, and a lot of people had their minds changed as a result of that' 60 minutes" piece. and andrew and katherine have gotten hundreds of letters from people saying that happened to the me, too, obviously, on a smaller scale. so there's been a surprising kind of amount of that as well. and they have had literally, you know, from the general public at large, from the media there's been no support, you know, leading up to this because people just automatically assumed they were involved as i assumed until i really spent significant time with them. >> when you were approached to write the book, what was your initial reaction? >> well, i wasn't approached to write the book.

i, it happened much more organically than that. like, i had read from a book i had written about my own imposter father, the fiancee of andrew who was at my reading randomly and wanted to spend time with me. the first couple of dinners i had with them, i actually spent thanksgiving at their house, the first thanks giving after the scandal. and i'm estranged from my own father for very similar reasons, and i wasn't going to thanksgiving at my house, and they invited me to their house and, of course, as a journalist, i was completely curious about what it was going to be like. it was very interesting. there were a lot of new friends since the scandal. mark was not there. there's a huge rift between the brothers that i go into in great detail in the book, but i had no idea about that until, you know, i got to know them. but after two years they were finally ready to tell their story and finally allowed to tell their story because there's been ongoing settlements, they've been muzzled by lawyers. and at that point it was just obvious that i was going to be the person that was going to sit

down with them. but even two years into my acquaintanceship with them, i was not at all convinced of andrew's, you know, innocence, and it really wasn't until he gave me such a detailed explanation about the way the businesses are separate, the fact that, um, they were completely, you know, investigated by the government, there are files, every single computer file, everything was taken apart, they were never indicted. the people that are already in jail or awaiting trial would have every reason in the world to turn in the brothers or ruth to get a reduction in their own sentence and weren't able to do so, so there were many mitigating factors in addition to the whole psychological component that convinced me. >> right here. >> the microphone. you just need the microphone. >> i may be confused about this, but is there a book coming out that's going to be written by the fiancee? >> no, no. >> no. >> the fiancee of andrew ff