Willful Ignorance

It is a dark and gloomy Wednesday afternoon in New York City. We find ourselves in the office of Irving H. Picard, the Trustee for the liquidation of the Bernard L. Madoff fraud case. He is meeting with Fred Wilpon and his son Jeff who are the owners of the New York Mets baseball franchise. Evidently, the Wilpons invested - and withdrew - large sums of money with Madoff before he went belly up leading some to believe they knew it was all a Ponzi scheme.

Let's listen in:

Give me a check for a hundred grand plus three hundred in cash and I guarantee you walk on the conspiracy charge. But they're gonna come back at us on a tax evasion, and they'll get it.









So, what am I looking at here?











Five years. You'll be out in three. Maybe less, if I can make a deal.









Three fucking years! For what? Washing money? The fucking country was built on washed money.









It can't be that bad. It's not like Cuba.









What the fuck you talking?











The jails here are like hotels.









You kidding me or what? You fucking high or what?







I'll delay the trial. A year and a half, two years. You won't even start...









Fuck you, man! I'm not going back in no cage, okay? No way. I been there. Okay.






















Look, Irving, I go another four hundred grand. That's 800,000 dollars. With that kind of money, you can buy the supreme court.







Fred, the law has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. I'm an expert at raising that doubt. But when you got a million three undeclared dollars staring into a videotape camera, honey baby, it's hard to convince a jury you found it in a taxicab.

I know I'm not convinced.

Will you please just sell the team already?

Larry B