MADOFF: The Final Word, by Richard BeharWe don’t yet have “Madoff: The Musical,” but years after his 2021 death from kidney disease in a federal prison hospital, Bernie the Ponzi-scheming potentate keeps yielding cultural dividends. As its own author, Richard Behar, admits: doubtful. Along with many, many secondary interviews, he visited Madoff in prison thrice; talked to him on the phone about 50 times; and received from him dozens of handwritten letters and hundreds of emails. For every dollar he stole, Madoff seems to have generated at least one piece of regular paper. orgy: burlap bags of the scraps taken to a nearby recycling plant, his secrets “dissolving to mulch.”

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Persons: MADOFF, Richard Behar, Madoff, Bernie, potentate, Robert De Niro, Behar, “ Organizations: Lincoln Center, Netflix, New York Times, of Scientology, U.S . Library of Congress Locations: Brooklyn