150 Years For Madoff

Bernard Madoff Gets 150 Years in Jail for Epic Fraud (Update5)

Bloomberg:

Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in federal prison for masterminding the largest Ponzi scheme in history, a penalty six times longer than those meted out to the chief executives of WorldCom Inc. and Enron Corp. [...]

Madoff pleaded guilty to securities fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, investment adviser fraud, three counts of money laundering, false statements, perjury, false filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and theft from an employee benefit plan. [...]

Madoff received the maximum sentence on the 11 fraud charges to which he pleaded guilty.

He received 20 years each on counts of securities fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, two counts of international money laundering, and making a false statement to the SEC.

He got ten years for money laundering and five years each for investment adviser fraud, making a false statement, perjury, and theft from an employee benefit plan.

The sentences, which are the maximum on each count, are to be served consecutively, totaling 150 years. [...]

Prosecutors are probing whether his subordinates helped him swindle investors. A central issue is whether employees knew of the fraud. Madoff’s accountant, David Friehling, has been indicted on federal charges of lying to Madoff investors about whether he audited the firm.

No one else at the firm has been charged, and Madoff has not publicly implicated others. His sons Andrew and Mark Madoff ran the proprietary trading operations at Madoff’s firm. They turned their father in to authorities on Dec. 10 after he confessed to them, their attorney, Martin Flumenbaum, has said.

There has been a burst of civil litigation as well. Stephen Harbeck, president of the Securities Investor Protection Corp., which works with Picard and is liquidating Madoff Securities, said in May that it may take longer than 10 years to finish locating the company’s assets and paying back victims. [...]

“The sentenced imposed today recognizes the significance of Bernard Madoff’s crimes,” Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin, whose office led the prosecution, said in a statement. “While today’s sentence is an important milestone, the investigation is continuing.”

The case is U.S. v. Madoff, 09-cr-00213, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan).