Crime does not pay - Madoff gets 150 years

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Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2009 5:51 pm

Ok he made millions, but Bernie Madoff will be 221 years old when he gets out of jail.

LINk

Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2009 5:56 pm

Good riddance. He's no better than the slimy fraudstars we encounter here. Damn, I never thought to bait him.

Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2009 5:56 pm

He got off lightly.

Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2009 6:22 pm

What about his victims?

His wife pleaded ignorance, but has given nothing back that she is enjoying.

I hate scammers of all ilk.

Hope I posted this in the correct place, and not in a "Tribute" thread... Confused

Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2009 6:42 pm

^ Madoff's wife gave everything back. Except for 2.5 million.
You know for expenses and her trouble. Mad

http://www.abajournal.com/news/madoffs_wife_to_keep_only_2.5m/

419Eater is my life Joined: 17 Apr 2009 Posts: 351

At least he'll have someone to talk to if Allen Stanford goes down Laughing

Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2009 7:21 pm

Quote:

if Allen Stanford goes down

Which makes me to think -- if you steal from the rich and get caught, you'll do serious time. But steal from the middle class or poor...whee, get a bailout! [/snark]

Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2009 7:24 pm

I haven't checked the details of his sentence, but I hope that if this is a case where he's serving several sentences, he's not serving them concurrently (that is, all at once).

Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2009 8:53 pm

Yeah but he was convicted on Federal charges not state. I'd have preferred he got only 50 yrs. if it meant he had to serve it in the backwater part of some state state prison, not a federal penitentiary. The local prison inhabitants are usually more friendly to people like him Twisted Evil

Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2009 9:49 pm

Frankly the sentences that come out of our judicial system has me baffled.
Whats the point of giving someone more then 50-70 years in jail ? Seriously.. It makes no sense at all. Longer then 60+ years is a guaranteed death sentence..

Think about it.. Its a total sham.. Give someone more then 50 years in prison and the odds are they will die before they get out.. And really.. How many 70+ year olds are going to go on crime sprees ?

i wonder what is worse..... Killing someone or stealing 1 trillion... Acording to our system of justice and this sentence being a thief is worse then killing someone in cold blood.

The average murder sentence is 16 years or 13 for being good..
Stealing something seems to have become worse then murder.................

Don't get me wrong.. the guy should be put away for a long time.. But the system is broken beyond belief..

I say let the crime fit the punishment.. And i don't care what anyone says.. NO ones life is worth any amount of money.

Edited some content out.. due to forum policy Smile

Thanks, I read it, then it was gone - Roy Wink

Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2009 10:05 pm

Madoff may have only stolen money, but people have committed suicide as a result.

Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2009 10:11 pm

Quote:

Whats the point of giving someone more then 50-70 years in jail ?

It makes sense...see, he got years added for each count so in total he'll be given 150 years. now in 2 or 3 years if he decides to appeal and somehow wins on a few of the counts, he might get off 30 or 40 years. But if he's only given 60 years, and then appeals and wins, he could get it down enough to be able to get out eventually. This assures that he is going to die in jail.

Oh, and good riddance!

Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2009 10:25 pm

Casual .. If the point is to make sure he dies why not just give him the death penalty and save the taxpayers millions?

That is what your suggesting isn't it? The point of such high sentencing times is to make sure they NEVER get out of prison and die there..

Sure.. It might make some feel better that people are stuck in jail till they die.. But the reality is past the age of 65-70 these people are nothing more then geriatric cases.

If the point is to make sure these people never see the outside world again why not just give them the death penalty? In the long run that is exactly what giving someone 60-70+ years is.. The death penalty but drawn out over a much longer period.

People may assuage their guilt by saying "At least they are able to live longer" or any other excuse etc.. But the reality is Prison is no "LIFE" and being sentenced to a term so long that guarantees you will die in prison is no different then getting the death penalty.. The only difference is the cost to the tax payers, and how long it takes the prisoner to die from old age or health related things.

The system is broken.. And has been for a long time. It doesn't help that prisons have become BIG business now days.. Just look at how many people are in prison.. The USA has more of its citizens in the prison system then any other country in the world.

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 6:20 am

^^^Cause it's not a capital offense...not to mention NY does not have the death penalty. So the worst you can do is send him in for life. Also, I think it's something like an average of 12 years on death row anyway so that still wouldn't change anything.

Granted I think you are right, the system is broken but it's what we got right now so...

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

It doesn't matter how long the sentence is. He's 71 now. The chances are that he will spend less than half as long in jail as he spent defrauding and living the high life.

It's only money, but there are a huge number of victims who have lost everything. He took about the same amount of money as the top 10,000 lads*, and from almost the same sort of people.

-----
* 10,000 lads at an average of $1.7M each over 20 years, or $85k per anum.

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 9:52 am

Jackdaripper wrote:

If the point is to make sure these people never see the outside world again why not just give them the death penalty? In the long run that is exactly what giving someone 60-70+ years is.. The death penalty but drawn out over a much longer period.

Ask Madoff which he would prefer. I'm sure he'd pick the jail term.

As for wether you could compare him with a murderer?
In my opinion you could. He hit charities hard - people will die because of that. That's not a dumb statement but the truth. When you take away a charity's money, you take away their ability to help those who need them.
Then you've got the people who have literally already lost their lives because of Madoff's crimes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/8095097.stm

In the case in that link, Madoff may as well have pulled the trigger himself.

And then you've got this one:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7798533.stm

There are probably more to come and that's not counting the people who will suffer mental torture because he's cleaned them out.

I categorise him as a murderer. Personally, I would like to see him executed but unfortunately the law doesn't work like that. Like I said regarding the 150 year sentence - he got off lightly.

419Eater is my life Joined: 17 Apr 2009 Posts: 351

Although I don't mean to steer the topic in this direction, I'm from the UK and as such we don't have a death penalty anymore (albeit a lot of calls for it to return) but I've never truly seen the point of it insofar as being guaranteed to spend the remainder of your days behind bars is surely a much greater punishment? Death, for a younger person at least, almost seems like a bit of a cop out in terms of justice served.

The whole 50 million, billion, squillion year sentence on the surface does sound a bit ridiculous but its got to be more for what it represents than what it actually is.

Just to scupper both my points anyway, as far as this particular crook goes, in fairness I can't think of any suitable punishment that would match what he's done unless it was some sort of Judge Dread style banishment to the wastelands.

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 3:24 pm

Just to head off any potential brouhaha, let's all step back a moment and not let this devolve into a debate over the death penalty. That's a whole other can of worms that we don't need to get into.

Thanks! Very Happy

419Eater is my life Joined: 17 Apr 2009 Posts: 351

^ I really couldn't agree more!

I much prefer the peaceful forum Very Happy

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 4:16 pm

Madoff's greatest achievement was not scamming $50 Billion, it was convincing the judge, and apparently everyone else, that he did it alone.

Great play. He will probably die in prison, but his wife, sons, managers, etc. are all out there very free and enjoying their lives and a good amount of the stolen money.

I will never believe no one else working close to Madoff didn't know about this.

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 4:45 pm

^^The last chapter hasn't been written on that yet. I'm hopeful more heads will roll, including some of the investors who profited from the "fund" before it crashed. It's not uncommon to go after people who profited from illegal ventures, even if they were unaware of the fraud.

I understand a few of his better clients were able to order up statements showing gains or losses to help them tinker with their taxes. Those folks will have a little explaining to do.

** Retired ** Joined: 14 May 2007 Posts: 750 Location: Air

Juan Freizwidatt wrote:

potential brouhaha

The way you put things into words always makes me grin. Smile

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 6:46 pm

/\/\ to say nothing of the can of worms.

I'd like to see the accountant, who had to audit the fund each year, explain how come he knew nothing.

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 7:08 pm

The Associated Press wrote:

Madoff, who has been jailed since March, already has taken a severe financial hit: Last week, a judge issued a preliminary $171 billion forfeiture order stripping Madoff of all his personal property, including real estate, investments and $80 million in assets his wife had claimed were hers. The order left her with $2.5 million that couldn't be tied to the fraud.

$171 billion?!! How much was this guy worth on paper?
I'd have gone for a shorter sentence too, as long as it involved him living naked in a garbage dumpster for the rest of his years.

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

Wikipedia has the figures. The theoretical figure used by the courts was $65 billion, but that included fraudulent interest. The actual amount lost excluding interest was $10-17 billion. I used the $17b figure in my earlier post.

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