In prison, Bernard Madoff is best buds with reputed Mafia Crime Boss Carmine Persico.

Does this bother you?

It bothers WatchdogNation.com. We can’t stop imagining the ramifications. Somebody says something terrible about Bernie, and Carmine makes a phone call.

Remember this scene from Goodfellas?

So how’s that working for you when the Greatest Thief in History has the Mafia tentacles at his beck and call? How’s that for “putting somebody away and throwing away the key?” Can’t these two dudes be separated?

This nugget of information was buried on the bottom of a well-reported story in the March 18, 2010 Wall Street Journal, “Madoff beaten in prison” by Dionne Searcey and Amir Efrati.

Duh.

When Bernie disappeared to the prison infirmary at the North Carolina medium security prison where he is serving a life sentence, everyone said he slipped and fell. Well, it ain’t so.

But buried near the bottom of the lengthy piece is the best part: Bernie is still giving financial advice in prison.

“He gave me ideas on my index funds,” a former inmate told the WSJ.

Quoting the WSJ:

“Mr. Madoff advised him to diversify, saying he should invest in funds that track the S&P 500 index of stocks ‘where my money would be in all the stocks instead of putting my eggs into one basket,’ the former inmate said.

“He said Mr. Madoff also warned him off of day trading. ‘I was trying to get into day trading and he’s like, ‘That’s not for you. That’s for individuals like me with millions to spare,’ ‘ he said.”

Then in the second to the last graph, buried, was this:

“Both inmates said Mr. Madoff also socialized with reputed Columbo crime-family boss Carmine Pesico, whose attorney couldn’t be reached.”

We called the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to discuss this, but as of this posting, no one has returned our call.

And so it brings to mind that legendary food preparation scene in Goodfellas. See it above from youtube.com.

Just change the names to Bernie and Carmine. And don’t put too many onions in the sauce.

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Dave Lieber, The Watchdog columnist for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is the founder of Watchdog Nation. The new 2010 edition of his book, Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation: Bite Back When Businesses and Scammers Do You Wrong, is out. Revised and expanded, the book won two national book awards in 2009 for social change. Twitter @DaveLieber