MIT Sloan Kept Madoff-Linked Professor on Staff for Years After Fraud

Prosecutors announced that Gabriel Bitran, a former associate dean at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management, has agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges of conspiracy to commit fraud for using a hedge fund to secretly funnel investors’ cash into Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. His son, Marco, will also plead guilty in the case. Bitran’s misdeeds were made public as early as 2009, yet he stayed on Sloan’s faculty until 2013.

Bitran and his son paid almost $5 million in April 2012 to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that they lied to investors. Years earlier, a Reuters report detailed his fund’s involvement in the Madoff scheme. Bitran remained on Sloan’s staff until he retired in January 2013, teaching classes on operations and management. His lawyer did not return a call seeking comment.