Madoff Says Banks ‘Had to Know’ of Fraud

In an interview with the NY Times, Bernard Madoff claimed unidentified banks and hedge funds were somehow “complicit” in his elaborate fraud, an about-face from earlier claims that only he was involved. In his first interview for publication since his arrest in December 2008, Mr. Madoff — looking noticeably thinner and rumpled in khaki prison garb — maintained that family members knew nothing about his crimes. “They had to know,” said the 72-year-old Madoff, who is serving a 150-year sentence. “But the attitude was sort of, ‘If you’re doing something wrong, we don’t want to know.”