A year since his conviction for the biggest financial fraud in U.S. history, Bernie Madoff has already talked one of his federal prison roommates into making petite pizzas for him, investigative journalist Brian Ross said Friday.
Such are the charms and persuasive skills of Madoff, who ‘works best without a conscience,’ Ross told an audience at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel.
Ross, of ABC News, has been among the top reporters chronicling the misconduct of Madoff, who launched his Ponzi fraud scheme in the 1960s. By the time of his arrest in December 2008, he had stolen some $50 billion from investors, many of whom Madoff had promised regular investment returns of 15 percent to 20 percent.
The Securities and Exchange Commission had many tips — and many opportunities — to identify Madoff’s wrongdoing long before his arrest, Ross said. Had the SEC fully vetted him earlier, he said, ‘they would have saved lots of people lots of money.’
Speaking as part of the Penn State Forum speaker series, Ross said taking on such powerful people is a core challenge of journalism. The chief investigative correspondent for ABC News, Ross spoke for 50 minutes — including 17 minutes spent on a question-and-answer session. He fielded nearly 20 questions from the audience in that time.
University President Graham Spanier introduced Ross, a friend since their youth together in the Chicago area. Ross was 14 years old — and Spanier was 15 years old — when the two met in school, Spanier said later.
They worked together as young radio broadcasters in their hometown region before Spanier peeled off for a career in the academic realm. (Ross, in his remarks, mentioned having filmed one of Spanier’s early sex-education lessons in the classroom — complete with a condom demonstration.)
The men have remained close; in fact, they said, Ross served as the best man when Spanier married his wife, Sandra. The Spaniers’ son, Brian, is named for Ross.
As for the news business, Ross, a 12-time Emmy Award winner, shared a variety of insights Friday. Among them:
- He has been sued 13 times — and has won each time. One of the cases, a suit brought by entertainer Wayne Newton, went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
- He doesn’t see how CNN could have done anything except fire Rick Sanchez after the anchor made religiously charged remarks earlier this month. Ross called Sanchez’s statement ‘reprehensible.’
- When the late Peter Jennings anchored ‘World News Tonight’ on ABC, he refused to give much attention to the initial O.J. Simpson homicide trial. It was during that period, in the mid-1990s, that ‘World News Tonight’ slipped from No. 1 to No. 2 in the ratings, behind NBC’s ‘Nightly News.’ Still, Ross said he thinks that Jennings was proud of his principled stand regarding the case, seen as celebrity drama and not hard news. ‘We were proud to be part of that’ stand, Ross said.
- He hardly reads a printed page anymore, Ross said; instead, he went on, he reads heavily the websites of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe, among other online news sources. And he said he sees the Internet as a tremendously helpful and promising new resource for journalists.
