I don't trust Bernie Madoff farther than I can throw him.  But apparently some are willing to do so.  Take Bernie's recent assertion that he's working with the Harvard Business School to develop a case study, a core teaching tool used in the graduate school’s curriculum. The claim first surfaced in interviews Mr. Madoff gave from prison last spring, and got renewed currency in other recent interviews, notably with Fox Business Network.  When the business school issued a flat denial to Fox, the conclusion seemed clear: Mr. Madoff was lying.  But that's not necessarily so. A professor at the school wrote to Mr. Madoff in February proposing to do a case study based on his career experiences - which would include his epic Ponzi scheme, which he held together through numerous regulatory investigations, the market crisis of 1998, the terrorist attacks of 2001 and a nearly fatal cash-flow crisis in 2005.  The scheme began to crumble in the financial crisis of late 2008, and on 12/11/08, Bernie was arrested after confessing his crime to his wife and sons a day earlier.  He pled guilty and was sentenced to 150-year prison term, which he's serving at a federal prison complex in Butner, N.C. Agreement to Exchange E-mails. A follow-up letter from the professor in late March indicated that Bernie Madoff had agreed to exchange emails with the professor, whose name he agreed to keep confidential.  The professor, while holding Mr. Madoff to his promise of confidentiality, confirmed that his communication with Mr. Madoff is continuing. A spokesman for Harvard acknowledged - after being informed last week about the correspondence, which was obtained by NYTimes reporter Diana Henriques in the course of research for the book "The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust" - that the business school’s previous denial had been somewhat premature.

"Upon further investigation, we have found that there is, as you indicated, a faculty member here working on a long-term project involving several convicted white-collar felons (including Madoff)." - Harvard Spokesperson, in an e-mail.

The research, according to the spokesman, is aimed at identifying the"pressures, circumstances, emotions, etc." that prompted the felons to commit their crimes.  The result, he continued, will be "a series of case studies" that would be part of some future course at the school or the basis for some future publication.   [Dealbook, 9/6/11]