Madoff Secretary, Eleanor Squillari: Bernie's Silence Is Protecting Others (VIDEO)

TEXT FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK -- Bernard Madoff's longtime secretary said Wednesday that she believes the disgraced financier is not cooperating with authorities in order to protect others, and that he was a flirtatious boss who frequented massage parlors.

Eleanor Squillari, Madoff's secretary of more than 20 years, told NBC's "Today" that she thinks her former boss carefully orchestrated his arrest and that he's protecting others who might have been involved in his multibillion-dollar scheme by not cooperating with investigators. She declined to speculate as to whom he might be protecting.

Watch Madoff's former secretary on the Today Show this morning. Her interview begins about three minutes into the piece:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Squillari was asked what she would say to Madoff.

"After I stop crying? I would really want to know why he is not cooperating," she said.

Squillari appeared on "Today" and on ABC's "Good Morning America" to promote an account of her time working for Madoff that she co-wrote for Vanity Fair. The 59-year-old Squillari spent two months helping the FBI gather evidence against the former money manager.

In the article, Squillari said her married former boss was flirtatious and made sexually suggestive remarks. She said she once saw him perusing the escort ads in the back of a magazine and said he frequented massage parlors.

"Once, I looked in his address book and found, under M, about a dozen phone numbers for his masseuses," she wrote. "If you ever lose your address book and somebody finds it, they're going to think you're a pervert, I said."

Squillari said Madoff often made sexually suggestive remarks.

Story continues below

advertisement

"'Oh, you know you're crazy about me,' he would say to me. Sometimes when he came out of his bathroom, which was diagonal to my desk, he would still be zipping up his pants. If he saw me shaking my head disapprovingly, he would say 'Oh, you know it excites you,'" she wrote.

But Squillari told ABC she had a nice relationship with Madoff, despite his ways toward women.

"So, what one person might perceive as inappropriate, I didn't," Squillari said. "So, if he made suggestive remarks, I knew it was only meant to be funny."

Squillari wrote about a conversation she had with Madoff years ago, after a client's secretary had been arrested for embezzlement.

"You know, (he) has to take some responsibility for this," Madoff said, according to Squillari. "He should have been keeping an eye on his personal finances. That's why I've always had Ruth watching the books. Nothing gets by Ruth," she wrote.

Squillari said she was surprised when he added: "Well, you know 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."

Madoff, 70, pleaded guilty in March to charges that his secretive investment advisory operation was a multibillion-dollar fraud. The former Nasdaq chairman faces up to 150 years in prison.

Madoff's attorney, Ira Sorkin, said Wednesday he has no comment on any of the secretary's allegations.

Squillari said the Madoff who was arrested was not the same man she knew. She said she was shocked and then angry after his arrest.

"I'm having a hard time getting past the person that I did know, who was so kind and generous, and I admired him," she told NBC. "I can't seem to get it in my head that he did this. It's like it's somebody else."

And she decided to help the FBI.

"I was very obsessed with going through my stuff and trying to help them find out so I could understand what had happened because I just couldn't wrap my head around it," she told ABC.

"I felt if that was making me feel better, maybe this information would help the investors understand," she said.

Squillari also told ABC that said she invested years ago but pulled her money out in the 1990s because as a single mother with two children and a "very limited income," she needed to supplement her earnings.

Comments

[tomasedison]

Enjor rotting in your cell Bernie. There is no way out for you.

[Old Writer]

I don't know who I feel soriest for, Bernie or the poor schmucks he punked.
All I can think of is Mark Twain's take:
"I'd rather be the man who buys the Brooklyn Bridge than the man who sells it."
howtowrite­comedy.com

[superstition]

Why should we feel sorry for him?

[superstition]

Everyone who posts things like "waterboard him" should remember the war under false pretenses that the Bush administration got us into -- a war that has cost more in money and lives than Madoff.

Are you folks even more aggressively arguing for such penalties for folks like Bush, Powell, Cheney, and Rice?

[SteveDenver]

No cooperation? Waterboarding!

[maxfax]

The only reason people like Madoff are "admired" is because they're the big dawg with all the dough, and in this case he had everyone else's dough.

[bobtr900]

This women knows far more than she is telling. She worked for Madoff for a long time. She was his personal/executive secretary and probably his administrative secretary as well. She knew darn near as much as he did. Both she and Madoff are shielding others. Who might they be. Madoff, surely, did not run a multi billion dollar empire on his own, or with just a secretary.

The FBI investigators should tell Madoff he has some bargaining power, in that if he reveals who else was involved with him he can get a bit of a better deal for his wife.

[mudshark12]

If she worked for Madoff for 20 years then she definitely knows a lot more than she's telling.

[jeffgolin]

This is what happens to those that tell:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-7053419-details/A+son%27s+quest+for+truth/article.do

[SteveDenver]

I didn't know the entire story, that is fascinating. Let's chain the Madoffs together and throw them in the ocean.

[johnie2xs]

Now THIS could be a place for "Advanced Interrogation Methods".

Ask Dick and Alberto, if they're available for the job?

[All4ME]

Some secretaries have a God complex re: their bosses. The boss can do no wrong, because he's the boss, he's a Big Shot, and look he has all these powerful friends. So he "must be right".

One thing you have to say about Madoff -- he was an excellent judge of character -- he knew exactly who could be "played".

This woman obviously could be counted on to do her duty doggedly and ask no inconvenient questions. It works because she is clearly not the sharpest knife in the drawer. She still has no clue what was going on, what was done, to whom, and for how much.

[Steve Wagner]

So I guess that this means that Mr.Madoff does have "criminal" integrity and his secretary is out to lunch.
I will take the odds that Mr.Madoff is a person not to be trusted and he probably has many "friends" and co workers that fall under that category as well.

[All4ME]

Nobody ever feels like they're the 'bad guy', Steve, do they?

I bet in the twisted labyrinth of Mr. Madoff's mind he felt that he was doing good, somehow?

In particular, I'd be fascinated to learn what his justification would be to ripping off the likes of Holocaust survivors like Elie Wiesel.

Where is Dostoyevsky when we need him?

[Alvin Hampel]

Somewhere in the New York area are masseuses hiring lawyers and beginning to bargain for the best bucks for revealing their secrets ministering to Bernie Madoff.

[Clare53]

I think she's kind of sleazy.

[tomasedison]

Berrnie made her very very very rich. All she had to do was keep her mouth shut.

[MarieNat]

I would keep my mouth shut if I were her. At some point, folks might start asking her what she knew.

[EmmJay1025]

So is this an "Honor Among Thieves" scenario?

[bazokbros]

A guy who was involved swindling billions is a stand-up guy? Is she friggin serious? Sorry lady, shut-up you're not adding anything of relevance about a guy who has OCD and some serious mental issues.