So now that good old Bernie M got sentenced, I was thinking about the kinds of image problems he would face if he lived out all 150 years in the Big House and then had to reenter the outside world. For those of us who practice Crisis PR it doesn’t get any better than this. I mean this guy is the epitome of crisis. So here are some ideas I plan to use if I get a chance to pitch Bernie.
“To begin with, Bernie, you need to take stock of the situation. Even though your crime was committed 150+ years ago, you’ll have even more people mad at you than you do today. These would be the relatives of those folks you originally screwed, you know, all of those people who have missed out on a big inheritance. Say you originally messed with 10,000 people, given that it is now 3 generations later, you will have probably 50,000 folks or so really, really upset with you.
So what do you do? Here are my suggestions:
Get that smirk off your face
Burn all those $5,000 Zegna suits
Leave town. In fact, leave the country. I would also rule out Israel and all of Europe. Maybe the Sudan
Change religions. Buddhism is pretty neutral.
Cut your hair. That East Side super chic cut you have now won’t do. Consider a buzz cut
Change your name. Maybe Muhammad Madoff may win you some friends is the Islamic world
Lose weight. That shouldn’t be a problem considering the quality of prison cuisine
Get Divorced. No one likes or believes your wife anyway. In fact, didn’t she put you up to it?
Disown your kids. Ditto the reasoning
Become the Victim. After all, it was all those greedy senior citizens who put you up to it.
Your humble PR servant”