Secretary Dishes About Madoff's 'Roving Eye'

Inside details paint picture of lewd Ponzi schemer

By Evann Gastaldo, Newser Staff

Posted May 6, 2009 8:42 AM CDT

(Newser) – Bernie Madoff “was irresistible to women,” his longtime secretary says, and the confessed Ponzi schemer felt the same way about them, perusing escort ads and keeping “about a dozen phone numbers for his masseuses” in his address book. Eleanor Squillari reveals intimate details about her boss, including Madoff’s combative relationship with wife Ruth, what exactly happened on the 17th floor, and more, in Vanity Fair.

How did Madoff get his misdeeds past staffers on the 17th floor, Ponzi scheme central? They were “low-level, clerical women, many of them working mothers, who probably made no more than $40,000 a year. They were young and naïve, with no background in finance, so they weren’t able to connect the dots,” Squillari writes, and their boss “watched them like a hawk.”

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In this March 10, 2009 file photo, Bernard Madoff exits Manhattan federal court in New York. (AP Photo/Louis Lanzano, File)

Bernard Madoff exits Manhattan federal court, Tuesday, March 10, 2009, in New York. (AP Photo/David Karp)

Ruth Madoff leaves the Metropolitan Correctional Center after visiting her husband disgraced financier Bernard Madoff, April 6, 2009 in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

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What happens is, it starts out with you taking a little bit, maybe a few hundred, a few thousand. You get comfortable with that, and before you know it, it snowballs into something big. - Eleanor Squillari recalls a conversation she had with Bernie Madoff

She would never allow herself to gain weight or have a hair out of place, and she always kept an eagle eye on him, especially when he was around young, attractive women. - Eleanor Squillari, on Ruth Madoff

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Secretary Dishes About Madoff's 'Roving Eye'