a “Harvard Business School's professor's course project with” him. But like most things involving the world’s most notorious white-collar criminal, his involvement with the Harvard Business School contains an element of truth, though if you believe officials at Harvard in their latest set of denials, Madoff’s statements are a gross exaggeration. A spokesman for the school tells FOX Business that while the school itself hasn’t sanctioned a Madoff course and isn't even discussing one, he has been in touch with a “member of the faculty…for some research (the faculty member) doing,” The faculty member is “conducting this research independently.” The school adds that “we are unaware of anyone else having been in touch with him and there are no official discussions of any kind about developing a course with him.” The spokesman for Harvard concludes by saying “I’m sorry for any confusion that has caused but we do not monitor the research activities of our individual faculty members." It’s interesting to note that Madoff has been touting his involvement with Harvard for months in the few interviews he has granted with reporters, and Harvard has steadfastly denied any involvement with him, though this is the first time the school has conceded that Madoff has been in contact with one of its professors about independent research. The school didn’t respond to a request to supply the name of the professor to FOX Business; neither so far has Madoff, though in his most recent email he said he shared the name of the professor with Diana Henriques, a New York Times reporter who wrote a book about the Madoff scam titled “The Wizard of Lies”. “If you wish to call Diana Henriques I'm sure she can confirm that I sent her copies of the Professors letter and numerous e-mails concerning Harvard Business School's professor's course project with me,” Madoff wrote me last Thursday. So we contacted Henriques, and in an email, she told FOX Business’s Sital Patel, that she has seen “communication between Madoff and a Harvard Business School professor for some independent research.” She did not elaborate and hasn’t return emails for further comment. The issue here isn’t to catch a convicted liar like Bernie Madoff in yet another lie than it is to underscore the need to remember why he is spending the rest of his life in jail at a time when media outlets and a professor at a major business school appear to want to hear his insights into the financial business. Madoff, of course, ripped off some $50 billion from investors both large and small. He did this over a 20 year period by touting an investment formula that defied reality in that it never lost money and produced steady, albeit fake returns. During this time, Madoff attracted throngs of customers who looked beyond the wild claims. He even managed to hoodwink regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission, who examined his alleged investment strategy several times over the years, and gave him a clean bill of health. Only when the 2008 financial crisis caused his big European investors to withdraw massive amounts of money from his Ponzi fund so fast that he couldn’t attract enough new money to replace what was being yanked out did Madoff come clean and