LESSON ELEVEN: The First Degree

Madoff's Victim List - The Wall Street Journal

The number of victims from Bernard Madoff's alleged Ponzi scheme continues to grow. A list with thousands of names of clients who invested money with Mr. Madoff was released as part of a bankruptcy-court filing. Below, see some of the most exposed investors and sort by the amount of potential losses.

STAY UNLISTED: Who else got swindled by Bernie? To borrow a line from the 1986 movie Top Gun, “the list is long but distinguished.” Of course, Top Gun is not a Bacon film, though he is an easy connection to Tom Cruise (A Few Good Men). Kelly McGillis and Val Kilmer are only secondary connections. Anyway, the list includes foreign banks, money managers, Hollywood moguls, hedge funds, and several non-profit organizations. 

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UNDERSTAND THE ORIGINAL: Get to know Charles Ponzi, how the schemes that still carry his name work, and how they eventually unravel. Unfortunately, these scams happen more frequently than we know and only the large ones make headlines. Madoff was certainly national news as his fraud was the largest, nearly $65 Billion. Hopefully, that’s a record that was not made to be broken. 

How Ponzi Schemes Work

Ponzi schemes may not seem so bad. You invest some money, and when more people join, you get your investment back -- plus returns. The problem? For one, these schemes are illegal. And you only win if you're not in the bottom rung.

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Kevin Bacon

Kevin Bacon, Actor: Footloose. Kevin Norwood Bacon was born on July 8, 1958 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Ruth Hilda (Holmes), an elementary school teacher, and Edmund Norwood Bacon, a prominent architect who was on the cover of Time Magazine in November 1964. Kevin's early training as an actor came from The Manning Street.

BINGE ON BACON: How long would it take to watch every Kevin Bacon movie ever made? Well, he currently has 84 acting credits to his name, though that may change before this book is printed or even by the time I finish lunch. But working with round numbers, at an average running time of 120 minutes, that would work out to 168 hours. Or seven days without stop. Better order in. 

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MAKE IT A SNACK: Or, for a much briefer sampling of Bacon’s repertoire check out his commercial for the UK’s TV service, EE: . There he parodies his roles in Hollow Man, Apollo 13, Footloose, A Few Good Men, and Friday the 13th. While none of those movies is a comedy, the commercial gets a few good chuckles. Even after Madoff, Bacon clearly retains a sense of humor. 

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LISTEN TO BERNIE: It is still not a good idea to take advice from Madoff. But listening to him tell his story, contradictions and all, on the phone from a North Carolina prison, is both comical and chilling. Check out the Audible original series Ponzi Supernova by journalist Steve Fishman. Note how even Fishman, the skeptical journalist, initially gets duped by Madoff’s stories before they begin to unravel. Luckily, Bernie is serving the maximum one-hundred-and-fifty-year sentence, because his skills don’t seem to be deteriorating behind bars. 

Ponzi Supernova

Check out this great listen on Audible.com. To find out how the greatest financial fraud in history imploded, journalist Steve Fishman tracks down the victims, the federal investigators, the accomplices, and the mastermind, Bernie Madoff himself. Ponzi Supernova takes listeners through the calcula...

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The Wizard of Lies

Watch The Wizard of Lies, the original HBO film online at HBO.com or stream on your own device. Enjoy extras such as teasers and cast information.

SEE THE WIZARD: Madoff clearly does not deserve to have someone with the stature of Robert De Niro play him in a movie, but he gets it anyway in HBO’s Wizard of Lies. Then again, it takes a gifted actor to portray another gifted actor. 

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BLOW THE WHISTLE: Harry Markopolos is a quantitative analyst and financial fraud investigator (he calls himself the Greek Geek) who reported Madoff to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2000, 2001, and 2005. You can hear his interview with C-Span at: . The result can best be summed up by the title of his book: No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller (2010). 

After Words with Harry Markopolos

Harry Markopolos talked about his book [No One Would Listen], about his efforts to inform officials at the SEC and members of the media about the Ponzi scheme that Bernard Madoff was running - a full...