SEC In "Complete Panic" Over Madoff

[babylonsister]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/249045.php

SEC In "Complete Panic" Over Madoff
12.21.08 -- 9:33AM
By David Kurtz


A veteran staffer in the SEC's enforcement division tells TPMmuckraker's Zack Roth that the agency is in a "state of complete panic" over Bernie Madoff's $50 billion fraud.

At the same time that the agency is trying to unravel the unprecedented decades-long scheme, staff is being ordered not to destroy any records related to its earlier investigations of Madoff because of inside and outside probes into the SEC's own role in not catching Madoff sooner.

Meanwhile, paranoia has set in, we're told, and junior staff has been ordered to go back and review other cases the SEC has closed in recent years out of fear that violations may have been missed in those cases, too.