Bernard Madoff sentenced to 150 years in prison

2009-06-29 23:34:51

·U.S. District Judge Denny Chin sentenced Bernard Madoff to 150 years in prison. ·On Friday, Judge Chin ruled Madoff must give up his interests in all property. ·Nearly 9,000 claims of compensation from victims have been filed against Madoff.

    by Xinhua writers Yang Lei, Wang Jiangang, Chen Gang

    NEW YORK, June 29 (Xinhua) --

Bernard Madoff, whose greed had led to the largest ever Ponzi scheme that had ripped multibillion U.S. dollars from thousands of investors worldwide, will count the rest of his days in a prison cell.

    U.S. District Judge Denny Chin sentenced the 71-year-old former NASDAQ chairman to 150 years in prison. The decision was made after a court hearing from representatives of the fraud victims and a statement from Madoff in a New York-based Federal Court on Monday.

    The judge ruled that the Madoff fraud is staggering and long-running, and his crime is "extraordinarily evil." Judge Chin said the breach of trust is massive in the Madoff case. "No one letter has been submitted in support of Madoff," Chin said. "This is telling."

    On Friday, Judge Chin ruled that Madoff must give up his interests in all property, or the worth of 170 billion dollars, the amount prosecutors said had flowed through the principal account of his decades-long fraud. Meanwhile, the financier's wife, Ruth Madoff, must also forfeit her interests in all property, including more than 80 million dollars of property which she had claimed was hers.

    More than six months after Madoff's arrest, the prosecutors still can not conclude how much money or how many people had been involved in the scheme. Nearly 9,000 claims of compensation from victims have been filed against Madoff, according to the prosecutors.

    Sad stories were told in the court on Monday about how Madoff fraud has destroyed lives and families. Many victims, who had been friends with Madoff for years and had trusted the man with their investment, now live in tears and fear as their wealth disappeared with the brutal betrayal.

    A widow in her 80s told the judge that when her husband died, Madoff held her hand and said to her "your money is safe with me." Then she invested all her savings with Madoff, which had been totally wiped out.

    Madoff told the court that he made a terrible mistake and has left a legacy of shame to his family and grandchildren. But he insisted that he had carried out the scheme completely alone, claiming that he had lied to his family including his wife of 50 years.

Reporters gather outside the courthouse where the sentencing hearing for convicted swindler Bernard Madoff is held in New York, the United States, June 29, 2009. Bernard Madoff, the 71-year-old former Nasdaq chairman and the mastermind behind the largest and most sweeping Ponzi scheme ever, was sentenced to 150 years in prison on Monday. (Xinhua/Gu Xinrong) Photo Gallery>>>

    Madoff pled guilty to 11 felony charges in March, including securities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. But he had refused to admit to a conspiracy charge, which many believed is a way to protect his family.

    A 65-year-old lady from New York, who declined to reveal her name, told Xinhua outside the court that as the plot has been going on for more than 20 years, she believes that Madoff's family, including his two sons, "must have known this." She said Madoff, whom she had been friends with for four decades, "loves his family and doesn't want this to hurt his family."

    Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney's office in New York had requested a maximum of 150 years imprisonment based on the number of Madoff's victims, the amount of money he stole and the extent of the damage he caused. In Monday's court statement, the prosecutors accused Madoff of stealing ruthlessly from innocent people and yet having showed no remorse.

    People who attended the court hearing described the defense as "weak." "Nobody supported Madoff. Even no family showed up," they said.

    Madoff's lawyer Ira Lee Sorkin asked the judge to treat Madoff as a human being, not a number. In a letter to the judge prior to Monday's sentencing, Sorkin had asked for a 12-year sentence for his client. He described Madoff as "non-violent," noted his "voluntary surrender" to authorities, and complained about the "desire for a type of mob vengeance" in the victims' impact letters.

    But in court on Monday, Judge Chin said the victims are not seeking "mob vengeance," stressing that the symbolism in the sentencing is important.

    Hundreds of Madoff victims waiting for the sentence outside the court cheered the outcome. One of them, Patricia Silver, told reporters outside the court that she is satisfied with the sentencing and that the judge has respected the symbolism in the case.

    Friends of Madoff for more than 25 years, Patricia and her husband were devastated when they learned they fell victim themselves. In a letter dropped at Madoff's apartment soon after his arrest, they wrote: "How could you do this to us? You know we have a 14-year-old daughter. We trusted you. We depended on you."

    Michael Devita, an IT businessman from New York, declined to reveal how much money he had lost. "The money is gone. It's useless to talk about it again," he said. "It's important for us, and more people, to learn from it. Never trust people like Madoff."

    Patricia said her husband did not go to the court on Monday because "he could not handle it," but she wanted "a closure."

    However, to many others, Monday's sentencing is just a beginning. A couple from New York, who asked to be identified only as Mr. and Mrs. Freeman, told Xinhua outside the courtroom that such a giant Ponzi scheme can never be run by one person alone. "There are still many Madoffs. There are loopholes in our system," Mrs. Freeman said.

    An old man in his 60s, another victim who had been Madoff's friend for 20 years and did not want be named, said the U.S. government should be held responsible, too. "There are many many schemes like the Madoff one, according to my knowledge, are still going on. The government should do something to clean up the financial environment," he said.

    Madoff was arrested on Dec. 11, 2008 for running a giant Ponzi scheme, a classic fraud that new investors' money would be used to pay off old ones to trick more people. Investors in Madoff's New York-based firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, included celebrities, charities, millionaires, money managers and financial institutions around the world.

    In more than two decades, Madoff asked his workers to create false account documents and trade confirmations of amazingly high stable returns as well as false financial statements for regulators, according to the government investigation.

Editor: Yan