NEW YORK — A former Nasdaq stock-market chairman was arrested on a securities- fraud charge Thursday, accused of running a phony investment business that lost at least $50 billion before he confessed to senior employees it was a “giant Ponzi scheme,” authorities said.
Bernard Madoff, his silver hair reflecting the lights of a federal courtroom, was released on $10 million bail secured by his signature and that of his wife. He declined to comment as he walked out of U.S. District Court.
Madoff, 70, the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, maintained a separate and secretive investment-advising business that served between 11 and 25 clients and had a total of about $17.1 billion in assets under management, prosecutors said.
A criminal complaint said Madoff told at least three senior employees at his Manhattan apartment Wednesday that the investment-adviser business was a fraud and had been insolvent for years, losing at least $50 billion.
