© Mario Tama/Getty ImagesMadoff aide may have been duped by psychopath, lawyer says.
That's one of the questions expected to be asked this week in a Manhattan federal court when lawyers begin the defense of five former aides to the jailed Ponzi schemer, including Daniel Bonventre, former head of Madoff's back-office operations. One witness that the defense wants to call to the stand is Paul Babiak, Ph.D., described by Bonventre's attorney as a world authority on psychopaths in the workplace.
Bonventre and four other former Madoff colleagues stand accused by the government of having participated in Madoff's $17 billion swindle, for which Madoff is now serving a 150-year prison sentence in North Carolina. At issue is whether they were duped by Madoff or knew they were helping to perpetrate a crime.
Babiak, a licensed psychologist, is co-author with psychologist Robert Hare of
Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work.
Bonventre's attorney, Andrew Frisch, wrote in a court filing last week that Babiak has studied corporate psychopaths extensively. His expertise includes the ability of psychopaths to deceive and manipulate those around them, Frisch wrote in the filing. "If Dr. Babiak is called to testify, we expect him to say in substance that Mr. Madoff's conduct is consistent with that of a corporate psychopath," Frisch wrote.
According to Frisch, Babiak's research shows that the more time an employee spends with a psychopathic boss, the greater the employees' vulnerability to being duped and "the greater the likelihood [the employee] will buy into the con and accept the psychopath's legitimacy." So, was Bonventre conned? Did he believe in Madoff's legitimacy? Those are questions Babiak could address -- that is, if he were allowed to testify. The prosecution would just as soon that he did not.
Comment: As Lobaczewski wrote: "Germs are not aware that they will be burned alive or buried deep in the ground along with the human body whose death they are causing."
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