It’s not very often that I read my Vanity Fair and personally recognize a name or even know anyone quoted in the articles. The actors and famous types, of course, but not so much anyone in my circle.

But this past weekend as I hunkered down to read about cover guy Johnny Depp and then the Madoff sons I came across a very familiar name.

The article, “Did the Madoff Sons Know?” in the July issue explored whether or not Mark and Andrew Madoff might or might not have known about their fathers Ponzi scheme.

In the piece there was an attribution to Wall Street & Technology and specifically Anthony Guerra’s article featuring the Madoff family operation back in July of 2000.

Wall Street & Technology is Advanced Trading’s sister publication and at the time the article was published myself, Kerry Massaro (now Editor-in-Chief at AT) and Anthony were all working together.

And of course at the time Bernie Madoff was a revered Wall Street titan. Back then Madoff may have been featured in any number of financial publications but today he is featured in even more. From Vanity Fair to Golf Magazine, no magazine can ignore the salacious tale of Bernie and his Ponzi scheme.

Reading the Vanity Fair article it seemed to hint that the Madoff sons had to at least suspect something was up but might have left it at that as they were so ensconced in a certain lifestyle their family and business had created.

Then reading the WS&T article, entitled, “The Madoff Dynasty,” which focused on the family angle to the business it paints a very different picture of the Madoff's in the days before Bernie's scheme became public.

And it makes me wonder if others did really know what was going on behind the scenes. Guerra even points out in the first paragraph that Ruth, “helped with some bookkeeping.”

And Mark said of Bernie and the family in the article, "All of his family members grew up with this being our lives. When it is a family operated business you don't go home at night and shut everything off, so you take things home with you, which is how all of us grew up.”

I guess we may never find out how much or little the sons or Ruth for that matter knew but looking back and reading interviews with Bernie and the Madoff family does provide some interesting fodder.

In the days before the public knew something was amiss it seemed the family was quite close and would potentially know a lot about each other’s business. Now of course that is not the case.