Dumb and Dumber

The New York Times reports that the court-appointed trustee responsible for recovering assets for victims of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme has sued four members of Madoff’s family for almost $200 million they received over the years.

Who are these four people?  Brother Peter Madoff and his daughter Shana, both lawyers, who were chief compliance officer and compliance director, respectively, in a business that was in blatant non-compliance with all kinds of securities trading laws and sons Mark and Andrew Madoff, co-directors of trading for a business that never really executed the trades it claimed.

Does the trustee allege they were co-conspirators with Bernard Madoff?  No, just stupid.  His legal theory in not-so-legalese: These people shouldn’t be allowed to profit as a result of being dumber than a box of rocks, if that truly was the case – recognizing, of course, that willful ignorance is not ignorance at all.

If only it were always true that people were not allowed to profit from being dumb ….

~ by Dennis Taylor on 3 October 2009.