Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot facts for kids

Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot is a lawyer who used to work for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC is a government agency that helps protect people who invest money.

In 2004, she was the main investigator for the SEC on a big case involving Bernard Madoff. She found important clues about Madoff's Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme is a type of fraud where money from new investors is used to pay earlier investors, making it seem like the business is successful. Genevievette reported what she found to her bosses. However, she was moved off the case before she could finish her investigation.

Education and Early Career

Genevievette E. Walker went to Walt Whitman High School in Huntington, New York. After high school, she studied at Georgetown University and earned her bachelor's degree. She then went to the Catholic University of America and became a lawyer in 1999.

From 1999 to 2001, Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot worked as a staff lawyer at the American Stock Exchange. This is a place where people buy and sell stocks.

SEC Investigation Challenges

Later, leaders from the SEC had to explain to the United States House Committee on Financial Services why they didn't act sooner on warnings about Bernard Madoff. These meetings happened on February 4, 2009.

A private investigator named Harry Markopolos had tried many times to tell the SEC about Madoff's fraud, starting in 1999. But the SEC didn't investigate Madoff properly.

Lori Richards, who was Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot's boss, said that her department didn't have enough staff to find Madoff's scheme. She repeated this explanation in a speech in June 2009.

Soon after, in July 2009, it was announced that Lori Richards would leave the SEC. This news came just a few days after a newspaper article talked about Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot's important work on the Madoff investigation.