WASHINGTON (AP) — The director of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission is leaving the government less than a week after receiving an angry dressing-down before Congress over the agency’s failure to detect a $50 billion Ponzi scheme that the disgraced financier Bernard L. Madoff is accused of running.
The S.E.C. said Monday that the enforcement director, Linda Chatman Thomsen, was leaving to pursue opportunities in the private sector, but it did not provide further details. She has held the post since May 2005.
Mary L. Schapiro was named late last month SEC chairman, and it is not unusual for new heads of the agency to replace the enforcement director. But Ms. Thomsen became a lightning rod for criticism over the S.E.C.’s failure to detect irregularities in Mr. Madoff’s dealings, despite red flags raised to the agency staff by outsiders over the course of a decade. The announcement of her departure came a few days after Ms. Schapiro outlined new actions intended to strengthen and speed the agency’s enforcement efforts.
Ms. Thomsen was front and center at a Feb. 4 hearing by a House subcommittee investigating the Madoff scandal and the enforcement breakdown at the S.E.C. She was put on the defensive by lawmakers and forced to defend the S.E.C.’s position that she and other officials could not publicly discuss details of the matter because of a continuing investigation by the agency’s inspector general.
A replacement for Ms. Thomsen was not named Monday. Speculation centered on Robert Khuzami, a former federal prosecutor who is managing director and general counsel of the investment firm Deutsche Bank.
Mr. Khuzami did not immediately return a telephone call to his office Monday. An S.E.C. spokesman, John Nester, declined to comment.
Ms. Thomsen, who was the first woman to hold the chief enforcement job at the S.E.C., had been deputy enforcement director before taking the top spot. As enforcement director, she led the S.E.C. investigation of the fallen energy giant Enron, , which began in late 2001, and a number of other high-profile cases.
