World-renowned thief and fraudster Bernie Madoff used an IBM AS/400 to run his $65 billion Ponzi scheme, according to a new book. And while gutter-scum like Madoff are not exactly the sort of marquee clients IBM prefers to have publicized, it gets even worse for IBM: the book's author calls the venerable AS/400 "an old clunker." The nerve!In her review of the book, Bloomberg's Susan Antilla says the author describes how the AS/400 was used by Madoff CFO Frank DiPascali, who earlier this week pleaded guilty to having committed 10 crimes during his involvement in the massive fraud that Madoff (and, apparently, "the old clunker") orchestrated over a couple of decades.

But the book's author, perhaps in her rush to get the book into print as quickly as possible, contradicts that depiction of DiPascali as the alpha-dog power-user when she later says that no one other than Madoff used the AS/400, the reviewer notes. From the review:

[The author] also discusses the role of Frank DiPascali, chief financial officer at Madoff's investment advisory operation, who pleaded guilty today to 10 crimes related to Madoff's Ponzi scheme. DiPascali was an abrasive man who padded his resume, the author says. Essential to the fraud was Madoff's old clunker of a computer, an IBM AS/400 that he and select other employees could use to manipulate prices, the book says. "Madoff and other employees on [floor] 17 punched in the stock prices on the IBM AS/400 and would just enter stock prices that would square with his fake returns," [the author] says, after inexplicably telling us one page earlier that "no one touched" the computer but Madoff.

The new book is called "Too Good To Be True: The Rise and Fall of Bernie Madoff" by Erin Arvedlund.