Madoff Receives 150-Year Sentence
June 30, 2009
Bernie Madoff, the mastermind behind a massive multi-billion dollar billion Ponzi scheme, a fraud measured by some to have reached $65 billion, was sentenced to 150 years in prison, the maximum allowed for this white-collar crime, by Judge Denny Chin yesterday in a Manhattan courtroom.
When Chin announced the sentence the reaction from the courtroom was a round of applause, according to reports. Madoff, who pleaded guilty to the fraud in March, apologized to his victims, a long list that includes charities and wealthy individuals, among others, in a statement to the court and admitted to leaving a "legacy of shame."
Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee for Madoff, has recovered $1.2 billion of the estimated $13.2 billion in investor net losses since December 1995, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Madoff was denied recent pleas for bail and has been being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York. The U.S Bureau of Prisons must now determine where Madoff will serve out his sentence, which will last until 2159.
“As even a 20-year sentence would equate to an effective life sentence for the 71-year-old Madoff, I think the judge wanted to put an exclamation point on the severity of the offense and its impact on the victims,” William Devaney, a partner with Venable LLP and co-chair of the law firm's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and anti-corruption group, said. “Moreover, this sentence demonstrates that regardless of your age, it is possible to receive a life sentence for a white-collar crime--and that is a powerful deterrent.”
The U.S. government submitted on June 26 that a reasonable sentence in the case, United States of America vs. Bernie L. Madoff, would be the maximum sentence or a term of years that would ensure the defendant would remain in prison for life. Meanwhile, Ira Sorkin, Madoff’s attorney, sent his own letter to Judge Chin requesting a sentencing term of 12 years, claiming Madoff, at 71, had an approximate life expectancy of 13 more years. Devaney expects there will be an appeal. "I don't think he's got much to lose with an appeal. On the other hand, I don't think he's got much of a chance on appeal."
Madoff is a former investment advisor with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities (BLMIS), an investment management firm that was registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Multiple hedge funds served as feeder funds into BLMIS, including Fairfield Greenwich Group, which has since closed its doors, although Madoff's firm itself was not a hedge fund.
"I think there definitely will be some more fallout among feeder funds. One thing the government is going to be looking at for some time is the level of knowledge some of the feeder funds had about Madoff's activities. How did Madoff have this uninterrupted track record of success?," Devaney said.
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