Wall Street legend arrested on fraud charges

As news about Madoff's arrest spread on Friday, dozens of customers called the company, the media and their lawyers seeking information about their accounts, which for many represented essentially all their net worth.

"The scale of this is unprecedented," said Brad Friedman, a lawyer who has been retained by dozens of older customers whose money had been entrusted to Madoff for decades. "These are people who were living very, very well who are now destitute, whose only remaining asset is their home or their apartment."