The name Bernie Madoff has been in the news quite a bit, but for all you non-finance majors out there, here’s what Madoff did and why it matters:

Who is Bernard J. Madoff?
One of the biggest names on Wall Street for decades, Madoff is a former chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange. He started his investing firm in the 1960s.

What did Madoff do?
U.S. prosecutors allege that Madoff was running the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, scamming investors out of approximately $50 billion, before his Dec. 12 arrest at his Manhattan home.

What is a Ponzi scheme?
Besides being one of the oldest cons in the book, “a Ponzi scheme is when you take money from investors and you pay them with money brought in by other investors instead of actually investing the money,” said finance professor Robert E. Miller .

How did he get away with taking $50 billion?
“He was recognized as an expert. He was the chairman of Nasdaq,” Miller said. Alas, people figured he knew what he was doing.

Who is in charge of overseeing these things?
The Securities and Exchange Commission “certainly should have been keeping closer tabs” on Madoff, as there were “red flags” as far back as 1999, Miller said.

Who did he scam?
Madoff conned some pretty savvy investors, experts say. Notable ones include director Steven Spielberg, Holocaust survivor/author Elie Wiesel and the owners of the New York Mets.
R. Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, who lost $1.4 billion to Madoff, was found dead of an apparent suicide on Dec. 22, 10 days after Madoff’s scheme was exposed. Charities who invested with Madoff may be forced to close.

Why does it matter?
Experts are puzzled as to how Madoff got away with this scheme for so long.
“He was promising and giving investors pretty steady returns each year. This was a red flag,” Miller said. Madoff reportedly gave 10 percent returns for years, regardless of the country’s financial situation, and some have speculated that the current recession is what finally brought him down.

What’s going to happen to Madoff?
He is currently out of jail on $10 million bond and is under house arrest. He faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a maximum fine of $50 million.

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