Danny Schechter - ColdType

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In early September 2009, the SEC issued a report hat
reviewed its failed investigations into Madoff ’s crimes. Madoff
says he was “lucky” that they blew their probe. AP reported:
WASHINGTON — Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff tried
by turns to bully and impress the federal examiners who
looked into his business, but the investigators managed by
themselves to botch the probes and enable Madoff’s multibillion-dollar
fraud to continue for nearly two decades, a new
report shows.
A trove of revelations came to light in the report by the Securities
and Exchange Commission inspector general, David
Kotz. … The 477-page document paints in excruciating detail
how the SEC investigations of Madoff were bungled over 16
years — with disputes among agency inspection staffers
over the findings, lack of communication among SEC offices
in various cities and repeated failures to act on credible complaints
from outsiders that formed a sea of red flags.
NBC reported on Madoff ’s version of the event, “One portion
of the report shows how Madoff thought he was toast in
May 2006, but got away scot-free thanks to SEC investigators
who dropped the ball on his case.
“I thought it was the end game, over,” Madoff was quoted
as saying in the report. He also said he felt fortunate SEC officials
didn’t call to check up on the account number he’d provided
to the investigators.
“After all this, I got away lucky,” Madoff said.”
The SEC’s reportedly admitted incompetence on the agency’s
part but some financial bloggers think it may have been
an act of “self-exoneration,” covering up something more
insidious. Writes Jayanth Varma, “I think the report pushes
the incompetence story a bit too much to the point where it
almost reads like a whitewash job. I counted the term “inexperienced”
or “lack of experience” being used 25 times in the
report and that count excludes several other similar phrases.