Dirty-Dealing Madoff Was a Clean Freak

"Neat freak" may be one of the more polite epithets used to describe Bernie Madoff, who comes off as an obsessive-compulsive nut in a Fortune profile by James Bandler and Nicholas Varchaver. In immaculately tailored suits, he dusted furniture and got down on hands and knees to straighten rugs. Madoff, now jailed, would startle female employees by dropping trou to ensure his shirt buttons were vertical.

Other tidbits:

• Madoff was a “locker guard” in high school.
• In Madoff’s office, all pushpins had to be black or gray, all window blinds drawn at the same height, and all computer monitors angled evenly.
• The $65 billion Ponzi schemer shunned email and could barely turn on a computer.
• A 1960s swindler fleeced Madoff out of $85,000.

(More Bernard Madoff stories.)