If you think there’s nothing that can be done about Madoff, think again.

The familiar headlines are stale news now.

Bernard Madoff pleads guilty to a $65 billion scam, the biggest in history.

Madoff confesses to his sons that his firm was one big lie.

And, of course, lurid accounts of Bernie’s lavish lifestyle with multiple homes, yachts, and no-limit vacations. If you start to add up the numbers, you quickly discover that expenses are in hundreds of thousands or, at most, millions. But losses to investors are in billions. Keep the comparisons in mind. A billion is a lot of money. If you spent a hundred thousand dollars every week, it would take you over 15 years to spend a billion.

There is still a huge unanswered question:

Where did all the money go?

To answer this question, let’s start with Bernie. His picture is starting to come into focus as a devoted family man. Pictures of him with his wife Ruth show that over the years, he seems to have delighted in a wonderful relationship. His sons seem to share in that relationship, too. CBS News reports that Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee trying to recover money for defrauded investors, claims that “the credit card statement and other records prove Madoff’s family used his clients’ money to pay for homes, travel, fancy meals and other personal expenses.”

It’s too bad that Bernie’s devotion to his own family has caused the ruin of so many others.

Other reports say that Bernie continues to stonewall authorities who are trying to unravel the fraud. It appears that he’s trying to make his “self-sacrificing confession” cover the whole thing. We haven’t seen a more all-encompassing scapegoat since John D. Lee was shot for the Mountain Meadow Massacre.

Reports now are emerging that, although Madoff himself enjoyed profits in the millions and even hundreds of millions, select investors actually profited more. For example, Picard claims that investors Jeffry Picower and Stanley Chais collectively withdrew $6.1 billion over and above their principal investment with the Madoff firm. MSNBC has documented instances where Madoff produced customized profits to exact specifications from Picower.

Harry Markopolos, who discovered Madoff’s fraud in 1999 but failed to get the SEC to investigate him, said it took him “about five minutes” to suspect fraud. It’s reasonable to think that he’s not the only one who did. Put yourself in the place of Jeffry Picower, a brilliant lawer and accountant. He can see that Madoff is collecting billions from his victims and now that he knows about it, he holds Madoff’s fate in his hands. But he doesn’t go to the SEC like Markopolos did. He just blackmails Madoff for the lion’s share of the take.

Madoff himself has clearly lost it all. There’s no reason for him to stonewall investigators in his own interest anymore. But there’s still his wife and sons to think about. If the case really starts to unravel, big winners like Picower will know where the bodies are buried. They can provide the evidence to put Madoff’s wife and sons in jail beside him. So protecting these investors is the only leverage he has to protect his family.

As noble as these “family values” are, we shouldn’t let him get away with it. And we don’t have to.

This is the kind of thing where public pressure really can make a difference. I’m convinced that only the overwhelming demand of the public for accountability pushed the government investigators to actually convict Enron heavyweights like Ken Lay and Jeffry Skilling. There was plenty of political power to let them off the hook. The guest list at Ken Lay’s funeral included former President George H. W. Bush, former Secretary of State James Baker III, former Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher, former Houston Mayor Bob Lanier and former Texas Governor Mark White. (But no current office holders – curious, that.)

Demand accountability for everyone who was part of the Madoff fraud. Don’t let them get away with it.