New York - Incarcerated financial fraudster Bernard Madoff said he was amazed that his 65-billion-dollar "Ponzi" scheme carried on undetected for so many years, a lawyer who interviewed him told ABC News.

"He looked pretty good. He seems to be working out. He didn't hold back anything - talked about how he pulled it off, how many years he got away with it. He was very candid with us, very remorseful," said lawyer Joe Cotchett who, with lawyer Nancy Fineman, is suing Madoff on behalf of investors.

Madoff was arrested in December and pleaded guilty in March to running a pyramid "Ponzi" scheme, under which his firm paid huge returns to old investors by collecting money from new ones. The scheme had been going since at least the 1990s.

In June, he was sentenced to 150 years in prison - the judge argued that he handed out the highest penalty possible in keeping with the "unprecedented" fraud Madoff committed. The financier responsible for Wall Street's biggest investment fraud was transferred to a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina in July.

After the four-hour meeting, during which Madoff's lawyer was present, Cotchett said: "Why did he do it? There's a word, and it's a very simple word that we all understand - it's called greed."

Cotchett said he "was dumbfounded" when Madoff said "that he visited with the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) and there were times when he thought, 'They got me'."(dpa)