Even a hypochondriac occasionally gets sick — and even Bernard L. Madoff, who confessed to running a Ponzi scheme built on decades of lies, occasionally tells the truth. Such is the case with Mr. Madoff’s recent assertion that he is working with the Harvard Business School to develop a case study, a core teaching tool used in the graduate school’s curriculum.
The claim first surfaced in interviews Mr. Madoff gave from prison last spring, and got renewed currency in other recent interviews, notably with Fox Business Network. When the business school issued a flat denial to Fox, the conclusion seemed clear: Mr. Madoff was lying.
Not so fast. In fact, a professor at the school wrote to Mr. Madoff in February proposing to do a case study based on his career experiences.
Those experiences, naturally, included his epic Ponzi scheme, which he held together through numerous regulatory investigations, the market crisis of 1998, the terrorist attacks of 2001 and a nearly fatal cash-flow crisis in 2005. The scheme began to crumble in the financial crisis of late 2008; on Dec. 11, 2008, Mr. Madoff was arrested after confessing his crime to his wife and sons a day earlier. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 150-year prison term, which he is serving at a federal prison complex in Butner, N.C.
A follow-up letter from the professor in late March indicated that Mr. Madoff had agreed to exchange e-mails with the professor, whose name he agreed to keep confidential. The professor, while holding Mr. Madoff to his promise of confidentiality, confirmed that his communication with Mr. Madoff was continuing.
A spokesman for Harvard acknowledged — after being informed last week about the correspondence, which was obtained by this reporter in the course of research for the book “The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust” — that the business school’s previous denial had been a bit hasty.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/harvards-madoff-connection/
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