No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller by Harry Markopolos (rainbow fish read aloud .txt) 📗

I was also contacted by several government agencies, including the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee. This committee, which is chaired by Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, had already scheduled hearings into the incompetence of the SEC and invited me to appear. To me, this seemed a little like a Frank Capra movie, Harry Goes to Washington, but there was no humor in this story. Somebody needed to warn the public that the SEC was an out-of-control agency that served no obvious purpose other than to fool people into believing it was actually offering investors protection. The hearing was scheduled for early January, and I’d agreed to meet with a senior committee staffer on December 24 to discuss my appearance.

The day before that meeting, I was in my office catching up on some of my other cases when Frank Casey called. He didn’t even say hello. “Hey Harry,” he said in a weary voice. “I just heard Thierry committed suicide.”

“Oh my God, no,” I said. “Thierry?” At that moment all the emotions I’d been holding inside for the past 11 days erupted. I started crying and I couldn’t stop. I was devastated. Why didn’t I call him? I kept asking myself. Why didn’t I call him?

Thierry de la Villehuchet was a man of honor, truly a noble man, and apparently he felt that this was the only way he could really show his contrition to his family and friends and clients whose money he had lost. Thierry was also my friend, and I believed Bernie Madoff killed him.

Access International had lost about $1.4 billion, including investments from the royal families across Europe, Thierry’s own $55 million personal fortune, and the fortune of his partner, Patrick Littaye. As I later learned, for several days after Madoff’s Ponzi scheme had collapsed Thierry believed he would be able to get at least some of that money back. But when he realized that wasn’t possible, he sat down in his office, wrote notes to his wife, his brother Bertrand, Littaye, and one other person, swallowed some pills, then rested his feet on his desk and slit both of his wrists with a box cutter. His life bled out into trash cans, no doubt placed there by Thierry so he would not inconvenience others with a mess.

As Patrick Littaye revealed, the letter that Thierry left for him “assured me of his friendship and asked me to look out for his wife.” While so many other people were running away from their own responsibility, desperately looking for someone, anyone else, to blame, Thierry accepted responsibility and acknowledged what he had done. His family was once so wealthy and respected it had lent money to the Sun King, Louis XIV, but Bernie Madoff had wiped out that fortune. Thierry had trusted Madoff completely. He’d led his friends and clients into a catastrophic situation. For him, committing suicide was a positive act of honor.

His widow, Claudine, put it simply, telling reporters that Madoff was “a murderer.... He killed my husband.”

I hadn’t been sleeping much before this, and after everything else that had happened Thierry’s suicide was almost too much to bear. Frank, too, was crushed. Investigating Madoff had been an intellectual pursuit. We had kept our emotional distance, and none of us had been touched personally by him. No more. Thierry de la Villehuchet was a man we liked and respected. I considered him a friend.

I cried on and off for three days. Once I’d let loose my emotions I just couldn’t stop. I had a terrible time sleeping for many nights after that. And truthfully, I’ve never stopped wondering if I could have saved his life. What if I had called him, if I had offered him some encouragement—would it have made a difference? Maybe Bernie Madoff was the reason he was dead, but the SEC had a role in it. Apparently Access International had about 30 percent invested in Madoff when Rampart first got involved with them, but that increased gradually until by early 2008 as much as 75 percent of its assets were committed to him. If the SEC had done its job and stopped Madoff years earlier, Thierry might have been able to survive that loss. That certainly wasn’t my only reason for wanting to bring down the SEC, but I knew that the lives of many, many thousands of other investors had been changed drastically because these arrogant people failed to do their jobs. I admit it: I wanted them to pay.

I was exhausted and depressed when I met with the special counsel of the House Financial Services Committee, Jim Segel, on December 24. Diane Schulman, a False Claims Act fraud investigator similar to myself, was very close friends with Jim and she had set up this meeting. We met at my favorite pub in the West Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, and Jim Segel explained that the committee wanted me to appear before them as a friendly witness. I sort of laughed at that, pointing out to him that I might be friendly to Congress, but when the executive branch heard what I had to say they certainly wouldn’t consider me very friendly.

“That’s fine,” Segel said. “We just want to hear the truth.”

“I’m only going to tell the truth.” The committee asked me to appear the first week in January. Too soon, I told them. I intended to take on the SEC at this hearing, so I wanted plenty of time to prepare. I wanted to be strong and healthy for this battle. I’d been waiting years for this opportunity—years—and I intended to take advantage of it.

I had one favor I asked in return. I asked Segel if Congressman Frank could make sure that Ed Manion wouldn’t be fired for helping me press this case within the SEC’s ranks for the past eight and a half years. I was very worried that the SEC would extract retribution from him for assisting me with the case. Ed was ill and needed to retain