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

36 hours in advance of our scheduled congressional testimony, just in case. I gave him everything I had except a couple of documents that were criminal in nature and more appropriately should be shared only with law enforcement agencies. Publishing those documents in the Congressional Record might adversely affect active criminal investigations in progress, and I didn’t want Madoff’s aiders and abettors to have any advance notice of what was headed their way.

While I’ve had many dreams in my life, testifying in front of a congressional committee was not one of them. It was not something I would have chosen to do. Given the choice, I would have picked fortune over fame; but suddenly I was famous. Fame, or maybe recognition, is a fascinating tool, as I was discovering. People were intrigued by Madoff, and they wanted to hear what I had to say about his scheme. I intended to use that tool first to focus attention on the SEC and then, if it still remained sharp enough, to celebrate the importance of whistleblowers to expose corruption in our system. But achieving those objectives meant being well-prepared; I had to use my few minutes in the spotlight to make my points. I spent more than 100 hours preparing for my two- or three-hour testimony. As I found out, it takes a lot of preparation and rehearsal to appear spontaneous.

Unfortunately, the lack of sleep and the stress of having my home surrounded by the press caught up with me. The trigger that sent my health in a downward spiral was a letter from Congress requesting my testimony on January 5, 2009. I received a letter on December 30 asking me to submit my documents before the deadline—which had passed a week before I received the letter! I’d never felt so low. I requested a postponement. I spent the next two weeks trying to recover from the worst cold of my life and devoting every waking hour to preparing my testimony.

On January 5, 2009, David Kotz testified in front of Barney Frank’s subcommittee. In preparation for my own appearance—which had been rescheduled for early February—Gaytri and I watched the five-hour hearing, then watched the tape all over again. I took notes. I got a feel for each member of the committee, what type of questions each asked, how detailed they were, and whether each committee member listened to witnesses’ answers and asked intelligent follow-up questions. The representatives from New York were the most irate, obviously because New York was hit pretty hard by Madoff, but everybody seemed to be pretty angry with the SEC. Good.

I was finally scheduled to testify on February 4. I’d written a 12-minute opening statement in which I just ripped into the SEC. The military had taught me that you open an attack with massive fire. You deliver the most devastating volume of fire possible to destroy and demoralize your enemy. And I wanted to put down the SEC quick and hard. Oh, writing that statement felt so good. I was able to let loose and I did. In fact, my attorneys felt it was too aggressive and edited it for me. Their version was politically correct; if there is one thing about myself in which I do take pride, it is the fact that I am not politically correct. I’m Greek, so by nature I’m going to be blunt and tell people exactly how I feel. I’m not going to be gentle. I read their version and said, “I’ll never give that.”

“You should,” they advised.

I was pretty insistent. “I’ll always regret it if I’m not brutally honest. These people deserve it.”

Witnesses are required to give Congress an advance copy of their written testimony for review. Gaytri warned me that as soon as we handed it in it would be leaked to the media. Being naive, I didn’t think the government of the United States would hand over documents to the media that casually. But we waited until the last possible minute, until Monday night, February 2, at 10 P.M., before submitting it. And rather than submitting my opening 12 minutes of blistering oral testimony, I submitted my attorneys’ politically correct version. I kept the testimony I intended to give in my hip pocket.

By 7 A.M. the following morning my written testimony was on the Internet. By 9 A.M. I was getting phone calls from reporters asking for a statement. The hearing was scheduled to be carried on CSPAN3, which is about as low down the dial as it is possible to go and still have a picture. Congress leaked it, Gaytri suggested, because the members wanted more people to watch CSPAN3. I felt I was going to speak to four audiences: The most important audience was going to be the victims around the world. They deserved an explanation of what had gone so terribly wrong, and I was going to give it to them. Someone owed them the truth, and I knew that the SEC wasn’t going to tell it. I was also speaking to both domestic and international investors, because I wanted them to know that no one was protecting them. They were on their own. The SEC is useless, and it was my opinion that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) was equally incompetent, if not corrupt. The third audience was the American public, especially people who might one day intend to invest in our markets. And finally, my fourth audience was the government, both this subcommittee and the SEC itself.

Officially, I was going to appear before the House Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government-Sponsored Enterprises for a hearing entitled “Assessing the Madoff Ponzi Scheme and Regulatory Failures”—which was the polite way of saying “How the SEC Screwed Millions of People.” My only concern was that I would be asked about those cases I had under seal; to prevent that, Phil Michael was going to be there with me to represent the interests of the government in those cases as well as members of