Personal Finance
Richard Behar exchanged emails with Bernie Madoff for a decade
Richard Behar
Courtesy: Lizzie Cohen
You probably haven’t heard Bernie Madoff‘s name in awhile, but that doesn’t mean the infamous fraudster’s story is over, or the pain he inflicted.
Irving Picard, an 83-old court-appointed trustee, still spends his days trying to claw back money from the those who benefitted from Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, and to reduce the staggering losses of others.
More than 100 legal battles over the greatest known fraud in history still rage on.
Richard Behar, who has just published a new biography, “Madoff: The Final Word,” is also still trying to understand how Madoff’s mind worked. What allows a person to rip off Elie Wiesel, who survived the Holocaust and went on to become a main chronicler of it? Or to sit with his wife, Ruth, in a theater and enjoy a movie while knowing that he’s erased the life savings of thousands of people all over the world?
Those questions haunted Behar — who tells CNBC he has long been fascinated by con-artists. So long after most other reporters had turned their attention elsewhere, he reached out to Madoff while the financial criminal served out his 150-year prison sentence in North Carolina.
Richard Behar’s book ‘Madoff: The Final Word.’
Behar started by sending his condolences to Madoff, whose son, Mark, had just died by suicide in Dec. 2010, the second anniversary of his father’s arrest.
Shortly after, an email subject line popped up in Behar’s inbox: “Inmate: MADOFF, BERNARD L.” That message was the start to a decade-long relationship between the two men, including roughly 50 phone conversations, hundreds of emails and three in-person visits. When Madoff died in April 2021, Behar was still writing the biography. Madoff often complained to Behar that he was taking too long on the book.
“He once joked that he’d be dead when it came out, which of course turned out to be true, although I never planned it that way,” Behar said.
CNBC interviewed Behar, an award-winning journalist and contributing editor of investigations at Forbes, over email this month. (The conversation has been edited and condensed for style and clarity.)
‘He never asked me one personal question’
Annie Nova: You write that you’re an investigative reporter with “a special fondness for scammers.” Why do you think that is?
Richard Behar: I’ve always been mesmerized by how the brains of scammers work. I’m especially intrigued, maybe obsessed, with scammers who steal from people who are very close to them — like Madoff did.
A scamster who I visited in prison in the 1990s did something similar. Until Bernie’s arrest, this guy ran the lengthiest known Ponzi scheme ever, for 11 years. He was orphaned and raised by an aunt and uncle, and yet financially devoured them, as well as his cousins, his wife’s parents, his best friend — even a nun who he charmed with his alleged faith in god. I wasn’t raised by my biological parents either, and spent my childhood in foster homes. I couldn’t pretend to imagine doing that to people who stepped up to care for me, but it’s endlessly fascinating to me. Maybe that’s where that fondness for scammers is rooted.
Bernard Madoff arrives at Manhattan Federal court on March 12, 2009 in New York City.
Stephen Chernin | Getty Images News | Getty Images
AN: Did Madoff take any interest in your life?
RB: Through a nearly decade-long relationship, he never asked me one personal question. That was mind-boggling. I’d sometimes give him openings, like telling him I grew up in a town not far from his hometown — with a similar but poorer Jewish subculture — but he said nothing. He couldn’t care less. I asked a psychologist about this, and she theorized that Bernie was such a malignant narcissist that he couldn’t “hold my reality, he could only hold his own.” I couldn’t be a three-dimensional human being to him, because if he can imagine that, he’d have to imagine the school teacher who has lost a pension.
AN: What was the most remorse you saw him show over what he’d done?
RB: I once asked if he could ever forgive himself for the Ponzi itself, and he said “No, never.” He insisted he felt great remorse for those who he stole from. But I never totally felt it. Never a tear. I asked why he didn’t cry at his sentencing, and he snapped: “Of course I didn’t cry; I was cried out.”
‘Prison was a great relief for him’
AN: How did Madoff say life in prison changed him?
RB: He never talked about it. He once described himself as feeling numb. I said, “I can’t imagine what it would be like.” He replied, “You don’t want to know, you don’t want to know.”
In some ways, I think being in prison was a great relief for him. Running a half-century Ponzi has got to be exhausting. In prison, he’d typically wake up in his cell at around 4 a.m., make coffee in bed with an instant hot water machine, then read, or listen to NPR until breakfast. He worked in the kitchen, then the laundry room and then oversaw the inmates’ computer room.
That last job cracked me up because he told me he could barely turn a computer on in his office, which should have been a red flag to everyone at the company that he wasn’t actually trading stocks.
AN: You write that he was seeing a therapist in prison. Do we know often this was, or for how long it lasted? Did it seem to be helping him?
RB: He ended one phone chat abruptly because he had to get to one of his weekly appointments with his psychologist. When he called me afterwards, I asked how it went. He laughed and said it was helpful, that she was a “terrific lady” and that he thinks he should have done therapy years before. But even if the sessions were helpful, he said he never found the answers he sought about why he did the fraud and why he hurt so many people.
NEW YORK – MARCH 12: Financier Bernard Madoff passes the gathered press as he arrives at Manhattan Federal court on March 12, 2009 in New York City. Madoff was expected to plead guilty to all 11 felony charges brought by prosecutors on financial misdoings, and could end up with a sentence of 150 years in prison.
Chris Hondros | Getty Images
He was disturbed by press reports that called him a sociopath. He said he asked his therapist, “Am I a sociopath? A lot of clients were friends and family — how could I do this?” Bernie claims that she told him that people have the ability to compartmentalize, like mobsters that kill and then go home and hold their kids.
You just put it out of your mind. I asked if she came up with a diagnosis. He said, no, just a compartmentalizer. Maybe she told him that to make him feel better since he wasn’t ever getting out.
AN: For so many years, it sounded like Madoff was just waiting to be caught. Is that right? Did he always know he wouldn’t be able to get away with this? What was living in that suspended state like for him?
RB: Bernie said he was under constant stress over the Ponzi, and would talk out loud to himself sometimes in the office, because of the pressure. One of his biggest outlets for relieving the stress was sitting in dark theaters with his wife Ruth, he said, watching movies twice a week. He also said he deluded himself into thinking some “miracle” would come along to bail him out of the Ponzi, but that he knew for at least the last decade before his arrest that he’d never get out from under it.
The only time he truly relaxed, he said, was on weekends when he was out on his yacht. I interviewed a former FBI behavioral analysis expert who suggested Bernie felt safe on the boat because he could see 360 degrees around him, all the way to the horizon, so he’d have a lot of forewarning that a threat was coming.
‘Not a single investor’ had complained to the SEC
AN: You paint a really interesting portrait of the figure of Irving Picard, an 83-year-old court-appointed trustee, who has spent years trying to get money back for Madoff’s investors. Has this been Picard’s only job over the years? Why has he made this his life mission?
RB: Picard rarely talks with the press. I was just chatting with John Moscow, a former chief white-collar crimes prosecutor for the Manhattan DA’s office who worked on some Madoff cases for the trustee. He said: “Irving is a very faithful public servant.” He’s laser focused on his task. John’s words were: “He’s not manic about it, but he’s very close.”
In my book, I quote a former federal prosecutor saying that you can probe this case for 50 years and still not get to all the truths, but Picard isn’t interested in that. It’s been his only bankruptcy case since four days after Bernie’s arrest in 2008. He is ferocious towards net winners who won’t return funds, but he can be a soft teddy bear with those who don’t have the money for him to claw back. He may let them pay it over time, or he’ll take someone’s house but leave them a life interest in it.
AN: What do you think people get most wrong about Madoff?
RB: A lot of people who lost money get it wrong by blaming him entirely, rather than looking in the mirror and asking themselves how they could have put themselves in such danger. Madoff’s consistent and high returns were simply not possible. Even so, many net losers think the government owes them because the SEC didn’t capture Bernie. But that agency’s mandate has never been to protect people from stupid investment decisions.
Financier Bernard Madoff arrives at Manhattan Federal court on March 12, 2009 in New York City. Madoff is scheduled to enter a guilty plea on 11 felony counts which under federal law can result in a sentence of about 150 years. (Photo by Stephen Chernin/Getty Images)
Stephen Chernin | Getty Images
I mentioned to you that I went to a prison back in the ’90s to visit the guy who had the longest-running Ponzi prior to Madoff’s arrest. Just like Bernie, that swindler could not have done it without a big bank’s complicity. In that case — an 11-year-long Ponzi — an investor reached out to the SEC to complain that he’d lost money even though he’d been guaranteed a preposterous 20-25% return. The scamster was arrested the following day.
In Bernie’s case, not a single investor over the half-century of his fraud contacted the SEC. They were too busy splashing around in the gravy.
Professionalstudioimages | E+ | Getty Images
President-elect Donald Trump has been vocal about potentially raising tariffs on imported goods, which experts say could bump up car prices.
Trump has talked about implementing an additional 10% tariff on Chinese imported goods, as well as adding tariffs of 25% on all products from Mexico and Canada. On Friday, Trump told the European Union it must reduce its trade gap with the U.S. by purchasing oil and gas, or it could face tariffs as well.
Tariffs are taxes on imported goods, paid by U.S. companies that import those goods.
Tariffs have the potential to disproportionately affect auto prices because materials used to assemble a vehicle come from different parts of the world. Some components even cross U.S. borders multiple times before they even get to the factory, according to Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds.
“There’s no such thing as a 100% American vehicle,” said Drury. “There’s so much complexity, even though it’s a seemingly straightforward thing.”
Component tariffs could add $600 to $2,500 per vehicle on parts from Mexico, Canada and China, according to estimates in a Wells Fargo analyst note. Prices on vehicles assembled in Mexico and Canada — which account for about 23% of vehicles sold in the U.S. — could rise $1,750 to $10,000.
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If tariffs are enacted, the sticker price drivers pay at the dealership will eventually go up, experts say. But carmakers and sellers may have to bear some of the costs, too.
“The cost will spread across all stakeholders: automakers, dealers and consumers,” said Erin Keating, executive analyst at Cox Automotive. “No one company is going to dump all of that expense directly on their consumers.”
Here’s what to know.
Why cars may incur more tariffs than other goods
The automotive sector’s supply chain is unique because some pieces move back and forth across international borders while the part is built and assembled, experts say.
“People don’t really know where their vehicle is built and how it’s assembled from parts across the entire globe,” Drury said.
Take a steering wheel, for example. Electronic sensors or other parts that go into the steering wheel come to the United States for assembly from countries like Germany, Drury said. The steering wheel is then sent to Mexico for stitching, only for it to come back to the U.S. to be installed in the vehicle.
Vehicles could have “incrementally more tariffs applied” compared with other products, given the supply chain, said Keating.
If tariffs add to the manufacturing cost, automakers can’t risk passing on the entire tab to the shopper, experts say.
Carmakers and dealers may have to “bear some of the burden,” Drury said. “If you look at how expensive vehicles could get with those tariffs, there’s no way they’re going to be able to move as many [cars].”
There is, however, a silver lining — a lot of cars that will be on the lots in early 2025 have already been assembled or are currently being made, further adding to next year’s available supply, Keating said.
What car shoppers can expect in 2025
Car shoppers in 2025 are unlikely to see prices that factor in new tariffs, experts say. Baseline prices will be about the same, and dealers are likely to offer more incentives to pull in buyers next year.
The average transaction price for new cars is expected to hover between $47,000 and $48,000, according to Keating. As of November, the average price was $48,724, 1.5% higher from a year before, per Kelley Blue Book data.
While the average price is higher than pre-pandemic levels, “the good news is it’s relatively stable. We’re not vacillating all over the place,” Keating said.
As of December, average auto loan rates for new cars are at 9.01% while borrowing costs for used vehicles are at 13.76%, per Cox Automotive. The average rates for both types of loans are down about a full percentage point from a 24-year high earlier this year.
“We expect that consumers may see even lower rates by spring, which would create the most normal and favorable buying environment since 2019,” Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at Cox Automotive, wrote in the report.
For now, experts are optimistic for the auto market next year as inventory and deal opportunities grow.
“Tariffs or no tariffs, there will be more incentives,” Drury said.
Mariah Carey performs “All I Want for Christmas Is You” at the 2023 Billboard Music Awards.
Gilbert Flores | Penske Media | Getty Images
“I don’t want a lot for Christmas / There is just one thing I need / An answer to just one question / An estimate of Mariah Carey’s song royalties, please?”
No, my makeshift lyrics aren’t as catchy as the opening lines of Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” the 1994 jingle that became practically ubiquitous over the airwaves around holiday season.
But they do pose a question that probes into the black box of music-industry economics: How much money does the song earn for Carey, the song’s performer and so-called “Queen of Christmas,” each year?
Revenue estimates by Billboard suggest she made perhaps $2.7 million to $3.3 million in 2022, for example, from song downloads and on-demand streaming. It excludes other potentially lucrative revenue streams like Christmas TV specials.
But it’s hard to know a precise sum, largely because contractual details between Carey, her music label and song publishers aren’t public, experts said. The pop star’s publicist, Chris Chambers, didn’t return a request for comment submitted to his firm, The Chamber Group, about her royalties.
“Whatever it is, it’s a lot of money,” said Natasha Chee, a music, entertainment and intellectual property attorney at law firm Donahue Fitzgerald.
The song may have earned $103 million since 1994
“All I Want for Christmas Is You” is a yuletide juggernaut.
Spotify announced this month that the anthem was the first-ever holiday song to surpass 2 billion global streams. It has been the No. 1 song globally on Christmas Day each year since 2016, Spotify said.
The tune’s popularity has only grown: Total U.S. audio streams rose to 249 million in 2023, up about 49% from 167 million in 2019, according to Luminate, which tracks music industry data.
(As of Dec. 12, total U.S. streams of the song this year were down 8% relative to 2023, Billboard estimated. That’s partly a function of the shorter holiday season from a late Thanksgiving, experts said.)
The song “is a money machine,” said George Howard, a professor at the Berklee College of Music and former president of Rykodisc, an independent record label. “It’s a real phenomenon,” he said.
Mariah Carey performs onstage during her “All I Want For Christmas Is You” tour at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 15, 2019 in New York City.
Kevin Mazur | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
Howard, who also does consulting work to value music copyrights, estimates the chart-topper makes $2 million to $4 million in annual gross revenue.
Similarly, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, which specializes in music industry law, estimates the hit generates $3.4 million a year.
Over its 30-year existence, the song has made about $103 million in earnings, the law firm estimates. The projections include global streaming and non-streaming revenue sources, according to Manatt, which created Billboard’s royalty calculator.
The song’s 2 billion global Spotify streams alone earned $9.8 million in royalties, according to the calculator.
But Carey only gets a portion of those earnings.
Why Carey is likely getting paid ‘six ways to Sunday’
Mariah Carey performs during the opening show of Mariah Carey: All I Want For Christmas Is You at Beacon Theatre on Dec. 5, 2016 in New York City.
Jeff Kravitz | Filmmagic, Inc | Getty Images
The ecosystem of music royalties is notoriously convoluted.
Money flows to many contributors, like writers, performers, producers, sound mixers and record labels. Payouts to each person can vary from song to song, depending on contractual terms, experts said.
The terms of Carey’s royalty deals aren’t public knowledge.
“Whatever it is, it’s a lot of money,” said , a music, entertainment and intellectual property attorney at law firm Donahue Fitzgerald.
Natasha Chee
senior counsel at Donahue Fitzgerald
The singer is likely getting a “bigger chunk” of revenue than most artists, Howard said. That’s because of Carey’s multiple credits on the song: She’s listed as the sole performer, as well as its co-writer and co-producer. (Walter Afanasieff is the other co-writer and co-producer.)
Such a multitude of credits is unusual to see, Howard said. And it’s an important factor in Carey’s ultimate take-home pay.
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Music royalties are different from those of other works like books or photography.
That’s because there are two distinct royalty streams — one for music composition and another for sound recording, said Jordan Bromley, partner and head of Manatt Entertainment. Think of the former like the sheet music sitting on your piano (the songwriting), and the latter as the recorded song that you hear, he said.
Each has its own royalty structure. The royalties for music composition are received by songwriters and publishers, while those for sound recording are paid to song performers and their labels, Howard said.
Carey “has both the copyright to the song and the sound recording, so she’s getting paid on both sides,” Howard said.
“She’s getting paid six ways to Sunday,” he said.
Svetikd | E+ | Getty Images
A song’s writers and publishers — and not its performers — get the royalties when a song plays in a public space, such as on TV and radio, or in restaurants and retail stores, experts said. The U.S. is one of the few countries to have such a rule, Howard said.
This means that Carey (and Afanasieff, her co-writer) gets royalties whenever a cover version of “All I Want for Christmas Is You” plays in the public domain. Over 150 performers have covered the song, according to ASCAP, a performing rights organization.
Carey and Afanasieff split their writing credits with publishers including Universal Music, Sony Music and Kobalt Songs Music Publishing, according to ASCAP.
However, song recording generally brings in four to five times the revenue of songwriting, Bromley said.
“If you’re a songwriter with no record revenue, it’s hard to make a living even if you’re making hits,” he said.
The artist’s take of the recording revenue relative to the label’s can swing widely, anywhere from 20% up to 90%, depending on the contract, Bromley said. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” was released by Columbia Records, which is owned by Sony Music.
Afanasieff, Sony Music and Kobalt Songs Music Publishing didn’t return requests for comment. Universal Music Publishing Group declined comment.
Why Carey may have made over $2.7 million in 2022
Santa Claus and Mariah Carey during a pre-tape performance for NBC’s Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center on Nov. 27, 2012 in New York City.
James Devaney | Wireimage | Getty Images
Experts note that earnings from record sales and licensing can vary greatly from year to year, while revenue from streaming and performance is more predictable.
Of the aforementioned estimated $8.5 million in global revenue and publishing royalties that “All I Want for Christmas Is You” earned in 2022, the Carey master recording brought in $5.3 million and publishing royalties accounted for the remaining $3.2 million, Billboard said.
What was Carey’s cut?
She made about $1.9 million of the master recording revenue, Billboard estimated, while her label, Sony, kept the other $3.4 million.
She’s getting paid six ways to Sunday.
George Howard
professor at the Berklee College of Music
Carey also earned an estimated $1.6 million of the publishing, assuming she and Afanasieff split the writing 50-50. But her take-home pay would have been less, depending on her publishing deal — perhaps ranging from about $795,000 to $1.4 million, Billboard said.
All told, these estimates suggest Carey may have made about $2.7 million to $3.3 million from recording and publishing in 2022.
This excludes revenue from any financial arrangements for soundtracks from Christmas TV specials, which are likely lucrative, according to Billboard. It also excludes cover versions of the song.
“There’s a ton of revenue that opens up” for a pop star who is almost “co-branded” with Christmas, including deals for brand endorsements, live performances, cosmetics, home goods and apparel, Manatt Entertainment’s Bromley said.
The gift that keeps giving
Picture Alliance | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
The song is the gift that will keep keep on giving for years, experts said.
The copyright for works published after Jan. 1, 1978, generally remains intact for the author’s lifetime, plus 70 years after the author’s death, according to Chee of Donahue Fitzgerald.
In the case of a joint work with two or more authors, such as “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” the rule applies to the last surviving author.
That means Carey’s estate will likely rake in royalties for decades, until the song eventually passes into the public domain, she said. When that happens, the song would join the ranks of Christmas classics like “Jingle Bells” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” which can generally be freely shared and adapted.
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