Secretary Dishes About Madoff's 'Roving Eye'

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.” (More Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities stories.)