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After fraudulent investor Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 criminal charges, the federal judge opted to send him to jail which prompted Madoff's victims to clap. U.S. District Court Judge Denny Chin said, "He has incentive to flee, he has the means to flee, and thus he presents the risk of flight. Bail is revoked.” (Also, seeing Madoff in handcuffs was considered a highlight.)
Now, instead of residing in his $7 million Upper East Side penthouse, Madoff is at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan, as prisoner No. 61727-054, living in a 8-foot-by-7½-foot cell; the Post reports, "Madoff, 70, will be awakened when the lights are switched on at 6 o'clock every morning, and will sit down to breakfast at 6:30 a.m. If he bothers to get an honest job for a change, Madoff will start work in the jail at 7:45 a.m." And, perhaps stating the obvious, one person who served 10 years in federal prisons for securities fraud told Bloomberg News, "Madoff isn’t going to be real popular. All the guys there will have wives or parents who are losing their homes or their jobs or who can’t send money to them anymore. Everybody’s going to be blaming Bernie."
Some of Madoff's victimized "clients" declined to speak out at yesterday's hearing because they were happy that he was being jailed. However, Maureen Ebel told the judge the guilty plea shouldn't be accepted, "If we go to trial, we will show people in this struggling country and the world who look to us as the global moral leader, that we will hold all people accountable. We can show the world that all crimes, all crimes, including crimes of greed, can be dissected, ruled upon and punished." (Judge Chin responded that the feds are continuing their investigation.) And the next on deck for scrutiny may be Madoff's wife Ruth and other family members.
As for disputes between Madoff's version of events and what the feds believe happened, the NY Times explains, "Typically, shortly before sentencing, the court conducts what is called a Fatico hearing, where the government and the defense lawyers try to resolve factual disputes remaining in the case." Madoff will be sentenced on June 16.
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Since he pinched a bit here and there from over 4800 investors, the only real justice would be for those investors to take a pinch here and there from his flesh.
Leave Ruth out of this she worked hard for her money. She helped Bernie cleanup everyday at the office.
The Mass Media loves a Madoff. He's a lightening rod for Americans who are fed up with getting ripped off.
However, our own government continues to rip us off with excessive (and wastefully-spent) taxation and every increasing budget deficits. But the Mass Media will not go after the government - because things get sticky there, and the stories are more complex, and because the Mass Media needs the government as much as the government needs the support of the Mass Media.
So the occassional Madoff story is great for the Media. It provides the necessary distraction. Most of us will never get ripped off by a Madoff in our lifetime, but our own government will do it to us every day.
Well said.
Very true. But, the government also allowed Madoff to do what he did for a long time with no regulation. Its one of those damned if you do damned if you don't kind of things. I hate the amount of government intrusion into our lives (and that includes excessive taxation), but when it deregulates industries that need tight regulation, this kind of shit happens.
For Madoff's victims, his imprisonment is only partial justice. He continues to be mum about his accomplices.
He could not have managed to pull off such a massive Ponzi scheme without the assistance of others. Family, traders, bookkeepers, etc. Go after them all.
This is exactly why he decided to plead guilty instead of going through a trial. He knew all of those names would eventually come out and they would be tried and punished for their involvement. Now, he's the scapegoat that the public is looking for and everything falls out of the media spotlight within a few months.
Time for Bernie's big tattoo and pruno makeover...
He won't even ask for a lesser sentence because he does not want to allocute to his crime. Plead guilty so the details do not come out in discovery.