After Madoff: Waiting for Justice

Excerpt

This essay examines how Madoff’s victims adapted to their suddenly diminished financial security, status, and self image after learning that they had been swindled. The primary foci are: (1) What they were thinking and feeling about their changed circumstances and (2) How they were coping with them. To best answer these and other questions, during the summer of 2010—approximately a year after Madoff was incarcerated—letters and e-mails were sent to all but seven of the initial list of 167 victims asking for up-to-date descriptions of family, financial, and health challenges they had encountered, had overcome, and were still facing. Some victims, when it seemed appropriate, also were asked to comment on the activities of other victims whom they knew, had read about, or in other ways had heard about since Madoff was arrested. …