It is sad he couldn't find another way. Perhaps eventually he could have found another career to enjoy and provide for his family, but with that last name it might have been difficult to even get a job at Burger King, I don't know. He must have known it would be years and years before all this litigation would be over. And I'm sure it would be difficult to live in luxury for 46 years and then lose some or all of it. Just very sad and, as others have said, Bernie is the one who gave this to his family. He wasn't just cheating his clients. What was going through his mind? How did he live with that every day for 50 years and knowing that it could all come crumbling down at any time. Maybe he's some kind of sick thrill seeker or something.
I am curious about how the whole business worked. If it was based on a Ponzi scheme, then how could the rest of it operate in a seemingly legit manner that the employees wouldn't see the problems? I'm sure a secretary or someone like that wouldn't know, but if he wasn't really investing his clients' money, what were all the financial-type employees doing?
abc.com has a good article (see link below). It has been suggested that his confession to his sons and them going to the FBI might have been designed to protect them from suspicion. But they did brake all their contact with father and mother after this, apparently. Anyhow, it's not at all surprising the guy killed himself. He was used to living in luxury and then everything collapsed. Also if he broke all the contact with his parents that could have contributed to depression because if you look up to your parents your whole life and then you decide not to have any contact with them it ought to be difficult, I'd think.
"What would you do if you were a father trying to protect his sons," asked Suzanne Murphy. "'I'm going to say you knew nothing about it, because I'm seventy years old, you're forty, you've got children. So I will take the fall for this.' It's probably the only menschy Jewish thing he's done."
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/mark-madoff-madoff-chronicles/story?id=12374049&page=5