150 years for Bernard Madoff. Is that the right figure? His lawyer had complained before the sentence about a sense of “mob vengeance” in the way victims were campaigning? If that’s proved to be the case, would you mind?
30 Responses to “Madoff: did the judge get it right?”
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Yes, the judge got it right, but this sentence shows that in Europe, there isn’t much “justice”. A couple years ago, WHYS had a show about a German woman who had commited 4-5 murders, showed zero remorse, and she was released after serving 25 years. She killed 4-5 people, and serves 25 years. He kills nobody, and serves 150 years.
What a ridiculous sentence 150 years! Madoff doesn’t have 15 years left to live so obviously the sentence is designed to appease the howling mobs much like sacrificing a gladiator in days long gone and raises the question regarding separation of powers in the US. Also we haven’t seen the appeals yet so it ain’t really over. Madoff’s only sin was in getting caught and such an unreal sentence will have no effect on the others since it is not realistic and not given for the right reasons. Should he be locked up?…..Hell yes! 150 year……….Oh my…..go figure!!
Yes…Madoff case; Judge handled the punishment correctly….
~Dennis Junior~
I think that’s fare for the minor inconvenience he caused to all those greedy rich people. Some of them are now forced still to fly the old model Gulfstream 2 private jet.
If he keeps his nose clean in jail he could be out in 80 years.
Hello again
I think the judge got it right. But what about all the others.
Jim
Key?
What key.
The law needed to show that if you get caught, you did not get a slap on the wrist. But anyone willing to think about doing this also thinks, in general, ‘they can’t be caught’ so I don’t know how useful it will be in the end.
Although I don’t think there is a place in our justice system for revenge, I am having a difficult time feeling much sympathy for the man. He swindled people that trusted him out of their life savings.
It was a great number. This man ruined so many lives, hopefully others will see this number and think twice if they are thinking about it.
-Anthony, LA, CA
(To my earlier comments)
I think that Judge in the Madoff case got the punishment correct and accurated for B. Madoff since eh has not shown any redeeming in his misdeeds against the people he hurt in his SCAM.
~Dennis Junior~
Bernard Madoff is the ultimate in Conservative Deregulated Capitalists, he showed absolutely no respect for rules and regulations and he ruined the lives of many many people.
He is in the same class as Senator Lindsey Graham, who pushed through the 1999 law that prevented any regulation and/or oversight of Derivatives and resulted in our current Re-Depression.
Madoff is the highest expression of Conservatism, he was not only against regulations he just ignored them.
Bernard Madoff must be heralded as a hero of Conservatives!
Legally, the judge gave him the toughest sentance he could, though it should be hard labor in the federal pen. He is simply, the worst/best/biggest theif in history!
My thought… set him free… naked and destitue.
Put him out on the street with no clothes, without a cent. Let him freeze in the night while begging for scraps and rummaging through the garbage.
The sentance is appropriate. The man appeared smug before the cameras and has shown NO remorse.
Now lets get to prosecuting the folks at the SEC who ignored Harry Markopolos years ago. How can somebody get away with this sort of thing for YEARS!!! Especially when the SEC is warned over and over that this guy was running a Ponzi scheme. The SEC works for me, the American taxpayer, they were negligent and deserve to at the very least be fired.
Yes he got the right sentence. The business news channels are analzying every possible angle here. But what’s one message that’s NOT coming thru?
Despite the mindboggling cime that Madoff commited, there are STILL many business channel “reporters” on-air who say de-regulation! Let the market correct itself! Their networks must be paying them really well to keep saying rubbish like that.
Madoff took people’s life savings and spent it on toys like a common thief. He destroyed the futures of people who had worked their entire lives and trusted him with all they had and he did it without a hint of remorse.
The only thing unfair about this sentence is that Madoff will not live long enough to serve it all.
Is that all he got, 150 years? Oh well you can’t win them all.
He played mean and selfish games with peoples money. I bet you will find some played along knowing what was happening, covering the bases as they say. Most could afford it. Some poor fools put all their money where they thought a miracle was happening in hopes of a grand retirement.
We need the laws, the sentence was appropriate, and I have no sympathy for the ‘victims’.
The Judge got it right…Also, since this Federal Time; Madoff may never get out of prison.
~Dennis Junior~
There won’t ever be a telling, if the judge got it right.
I just caught half of a BBC World News report, where the correspondend said, Madoff would spend the rest of his life in solitary confinement. (If I got my facts wrong, I do apologize and ask to disregard this arguing point.) 150 years, 80 years “with a clean nose”, or 20,,, it doesn’t matter. He won’t survive it. Convicting him to 150 years is nice for symbolism, but it’s just antiquated. Besides, what was that letter from all the victims about. I do understand, that they are angry, I would be, too. But it is NOT correct to send the judge a letter, asking him for the harshest punishment there is. They’re putting him on the spot. And now there’s no telling, if he gave 150 years, because of his own unbiased rule or because he wanted to calm the revenge-lust of the victims. Justice is not about revenge, but to set an example. Well done everyone. A disgusting thought comes to my mind… If it were possible, to convict someone of fraud and to punish him by death, those victim’s would line up and ram a dagger into his chest.
Solitary confinement for the rest of Madoff’s life is already death. I’m disgusted with all of it.
@ Konstantin in Germany:
That part of the sentence is base on several factors set out in the U.S. Bureaux of Prisons guidelines…First: He will be sent to a “Detention Centre” for Classification….
Currently, he is at MCC in New York City (Bernard Madoff)…
In reality, Madoff would be classified as a “low-level” prisoner…
~Dennis Junior~
The judge should have ordered him to write a book.
I find the story extremely fascinating. Madoff is not a common crook in the sense that he intended to go out and steal billions of dollars from people. He started out with one little fib, just like all of us commit, and it slowly began to snowball out of control.
I’m dying to know what pressures made him decide to continue riding that runaway train, why he felt he had no other options, whether his conscience ever bothered him, how he was able to sleep at night and function on a daily basis knowing he was a fraud and could be exposed any day.
It reminds me so much of the Sopranos television series–how exactly are you able to compartmentalize the horrible things you do at “work” for a living, then come home at night and live an outwardly normal life?
If Bernie Madoff wants to leave the world something positive before he moves on to the next, a full explanation of how this all happened would fill the bill. That should have been included in his sentence.
He is just a scapegoat for the entire system of capitalism which is one big Ponzi scheme.
Who is going to pay back all those people who didn’t invest in the banks who pay for the “mistakes” of the banksters? That happens to be 2/3 of the worlds population who do not have a bank account.
There were plenty of representatives for the banks who claimed a sure safe investment in the offices of well known banks. Some are still selling “safe” investments to customers. Will they all get put into prison for 150 years?
The whole system is based on exploiting the poor so I have little sympathy for any of those concerned with investments. You lost. Get over it and face the reality you may have to eat your words about how dirty and lowly and undeserving the poor are.
Yes,but reasonable .The judge might have used rendition to send him to Isreal for punishment “,Burning Bernie at the stake”.Here has 150 years to plan his next scheme with free room and board.Not a bad deal for such a scoundrel
This man deserves such a harsh sentence. He should never be able to enjoy life again after such a crime. Not only did he ruin the retirements of hundreds, take millions away from many important charities, but he, in my opinion, single-handedly increased anti-semitism worldwide. As a Jewish person, I am infuriated that the actions one one reflect so poorly on so many.
Is 150 years excessive? It seems to be. However, not knowing the particulars of sentencing for his grievous disregard for the law I wouldn’t want Mr. Madoff to be eligible for parole in 5, 10, or even 15 years.
Just as a side thought… I wonder if his life would be in jeopardy if he were to walk the streets in under 15 years considering all the people he scammed for such a long time- many who still have means many who were cleaned out completely. I wouldn’t want to walk in the shoes of a “marked man” for all the riches and power he held.
Also, we shouldn’t forget he’s not likely headed to Sing Sing or any prison that would be a threat to his survival. He’ll more likely get sent to a much cleaner and civil imprisonment that is less life threatening with inmates equal to himself. Such is the travesty of “equality” in the justice system.
I would also like to see the SEC receive more scrutiny by the law and see punitive measures beyond a slap on the wrists to those who “looked the other way”.
We are a people of laws because the individual, as this case exemplifies, are not always honest with those whose trust they have and hold. As anyone who works in the world of Justice in the US knows, ours is an imperfect system, but it’s better than many.
Regardless of the length of Mr. Madoff’s sentence, he’s headed to a special Hell, whether he dies in prison or in the comforts of his own wealth.
This just in. The Madoff feature film is coming soon :).
Frankly, I’d like to see more sentences like that for financial improprieties.
We have developed a system that claims the corporations, the wealthy, and the financial wizards are far too important to society to be taxed at the same levels as the poor, yet when we find out they have been rigging the game all along, they suddenly claim it’s desperately unfair for white collar crime to be punished as if they had robbed a gas station.
Sorry – no. A poor man that robs a gas station for $100 will go to jail for years. When the wealthy turn out to have been cheating the system and destroying millions of dollars of wealth, they should be punished as if destroying millions of dollars in savings, impoverishing thousands of people, was somehow, y’know . . . BAD.
Perhaps, and I’m just spitballing here, even punishing them in some way that other people will decide it’s not worth the risk.
The Judge got it right, the controlling authorities did not, whom from them will be punished for neglecting thier Duties to Investors?.
Can anyone answer that.? A simple blatant fraud, why did no one notice that there were no Held Shares-Bonds-Investment papers-etc..
Question How was tax paid on the profit-i mean the the stolen monies.? and if tax was paid, the Taxing Authorities must have seen that there were no Holdings of any sort.
Sure he was a thief, but how about the others that were living from his system, he could not have managed the whole dodge on his own.
So of course the Judge got it right-Which Judge is going to get it right with all of the others at fault, and associated with the System.
May be one thing should be remembered. 3% interest doesn’t seem much, in the normal saving methods, but it is 99.9% safe method of saving. Life insurances are safe and you are 99.9% sure of getting your monies plus. Rather 3% than total loss, seems to be the prudent way.
John in Germany.
What do you bet he gets sent to one of those Federal “Tennis Camp” Prisons that are reserved for the wealthy who get caught?
He won’t do “Hard Time”, he’ll do really easy time, unlike the people whose lives he ruined. He’ll get hot showers, three square meals a day, and a nice warm bed with a roof over his head in a very secure prison while his victims are grubbing through trash cans for food, begging for jobs, living off relatives, giving up and committing suicide, etc.
I don’t know how you could really give him a just punishment but I would like to see suggestions about how to prevent anyone from financially hurting people in the future.
Regulations, Enforcement, and Oversight are sorely needed to prevent people like him.
Hi Tom D Ford.
Thanks for that info-new to me.
What a screw up-Ok he’s to old for a boot camp, but he should feel the pain every day that he caused to those that he robbed.
Back to the old theme Promi or VIP advantage, why? cause those that decide the future of us all are in the same club. They circulate in the same society-(no reference to Judges). They hit the same little white ball, on the same Greens, and so on.
I had heard about soft prisons but i thought it was a fairy tale, how ignorant of me……………Do you think they have a handy to use all the time, and a ticker to wall street. Anybody out there with experience of such prisons?. Would be interesting to hear from you.
John in Germany