Staffer at SEC Had Warned of Madoff in 2004

Staffer at SEC Had Warned Of Madoff
Lawyer Raised Alarm, Then Was Pointed Elsewhere

An investigator at the Securities and Exchange Commission warned superiors as far back as 2004 about irregularities at Bernard L. Madoff's financial management firm, but she was told to focus on an unrelated matter, according to agency documents and sources familiar with the investigation.

Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot, a lawyer in the SEC's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations, sent e-mails to a supervisor, saying information provided by Madoff during her review didn't add up and suggesting a set of questions to ask his firm, documents show. Several of these questions directly challenged Madoff activities that much later turned out to be elements of his massive fraud.

But with the agency under pressure to look for wrongdoing in the mutual fund industry, she wasn't able to continue pursuing Madoff, according to documents and two people familiar with the investigation, and her team soon concluded its work on the probe.

Walker-Lightfoot's supervisors on the case were Mark Donohue, then a branch chief in her department, and his boss, Eric Swanson, an assistant director of the department, said two people familiar with the investigation. Swanson later married Madoff's niece, and their relationship is now under review by the agency's inspector general, who is examining the SEC's handling of the Madoff case.

Madoff confessed in December to running "a giant Ponzi scheme" worth potentially $50 billion, and he was sentenced Monday to 150 years in prison after victims told a judge about how Madoff had destroyed their lives. Authorities are continuing to investigate other people and firms that might have abetted the fraud.

too long to print whole story...read it all here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/01/AR2009070104223.html

 

The Senior Staff Member who took the SEC attorney off the case remains at the SEC and last year received a salary of near $200,000 and received a $3,000 merit bonus.


http://php.app.com/fed_employees/re...itle=%&statename=%&countyname=%&Submit=Search

 

Nice job, for pushing paper.

 

even better job when there is no accountability and you can protect criminals on the taxpayer dime. This was a supervisor who was approached with a ponzi scheme representing a major Wall Street individual and he turned a low level attorney away from the investigation. They pay him big bucks to make these decisions.

 

I recall an FDA spokesperson that announced that it was impossible for nuclear material to be stolen in the USA. A few days later they found him dead of a gunshot stuffed in the trunk of his car along with some stolen nuclear material. When financial activists reach the fervor that environmental activists have we might see some change, otherwise, forget it.. and with Obama's cabinet, REALLY, REALLY forget it...

 

Clearly as you read through this story you can understand why the SEC says they are understaffed. The SEC plays hot potato with cases which requires each new investigator to conduct a thorough review of past activity just to get up to speed on where they left off. The NY Bureau in this case clearly lost something in the translation and Ms. Wood or Ms. Walker-Lightfoot were not consulted as to whether their findings were accurate regarding their concerns. The silo factor.

 

Are you being facetious or actually serious while smoking crack?

SEC has been in bed with Wall Street since its inception. Madoff was protected from his fund's inception because besides the Ponzi scheme he was also funneling funds to certain organizations. And most of the directors at SEC are paid off & bought off, if not all.

But really, I'm just amazed that there are people left out there who still think that events like this are just mistakes and moments of incompetence by the SEC.

 

People don't want to wake up to the idea. That its all a giant fraud. That you can't actually make money in wall street with out "stealing"

Everyone want's to think that you can put your money into a 401k buy the right stocks and retire rich.

Except inflation and fees will confiscate any earnings.

You can you can also play the lotto.

I took the red pill.

Madoff is a patsy.

The SEC killed the investigations because they were told to kill them.

The best thing you can do with your money is treat wall street like a state run lotto. If you don't have an INside hook to rig the lotto stay away or dont bet more than a $1 per month.

Goldman has 90% of program trading right now. 1 fucking firm is running wall street.

Wake up American you're like the crazy old woman down the street, whose roach infested home was just burned down, she keeps walk around in her tattered bathrobe calling to her dead husband like if its all still there, stuck in 1965.

 

You can't be taken seriously with such a name.

 

Yea, I am the one smoking crack. I started right after starting the website investigatethesec.com back in 2003 and right after I handed Congress 10,000 signatures requesting they do so and soon. I think I was lightyears ahead of the curve on this one which may in part be part of the reason the SEC's OIG called me in to speak.