The first journalist to interview Bernie Madoff after the money manager was sentenced to 150 years in prison says she was struck that Madoff hadn't fundamentally changed.
Even behind bars, says New York Times financial writer Diana Henriques, Madoff was a "fluent liar."
"The magic of his personality is how easy it is to believe him — almost how much you want to believe him," she tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "For example, he assured me in that first interview — and in emails subsequently that we exchanged — that he wasn't going to talk to other writers. ... Of course, it wasn't true, he was talking to others. It was all a lie."
Henriques, who led the Times' coverage of the Madoff scandal, is the author of The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust. Her book describes how Madoff created the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, contrasting his downfall with the prominent role he played in shaping the modern markets.
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