Now, that’s a long time!
Yahoo News reports…
Bernard Madoff sentenced to 150 years in prison
Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison on Monday for perpetrating Wall Street’s biggest and most brazen investment fraud, the maximum punishment for what the judge called an extraordinarily evil crime.
Cheers and applause came from the courtroom — filled with his fleeced investors — as the judge handed down the penalty.
Madoff, 71, stood passively with his hands clasped at his waist, showing no reaction when he heard the sentence that will send him to prison for the rest of his life.
He was escorted out of the courtroom by federal marshals but not handcuffed. It was not yet known where Madoff will serve his sentence. He has been held in a small Manhattan jail cell for the past three months.
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin in Manhattan said the symbolism of a 150-year prison sentence was important, given the magnitude of the breach of trust over decades. He pronounced the punishment after hearing emotional statements from nine victims, some of whom said they had lost their life savings, were forced to sell their homes and feared an old age in poverty.
“The fraud here was staggering,” Chin said before imposing a sentence equal to the maximum allowed for each of 11 crimes to which Madoff pleaded guilty in March.
Madoff sat passively throughout the hour-and-a-half hearing as his victims called him a “beast,” an “animal” and a lowlife. He wore his signature dark gray suit and black tie instead of the jail uniform he has worn since being taken into custody in March.
The confessed swindler apologized to his victims, at one point briefly turning in their direction while he spoke.
“I will live with this pain, with this torment, for the rest of my life,” he said in calm, measured tones. “I live in a tormented state knowing the pain and suffering I have created.”
I’m sure with good behavior, he can cut the sentence in half!
I hope my Uncle Bernie makes it! I think he will be a model prisoner.
Madoff you are not living in a tormented state, you “made off” with all that money by design therefore you are so sorry you got caught and sentenced to all those years in prison where your sorry butt belonged long back. I hope you live long enough to serve every moment. Tormented is what happened to many of those folk who trusted you and lost every cent they had. Many of those people are homeless now because of YOU and here you are with a place to live forever, meals and water every day, medical benefits, TV, books, computers, et al and the taxpayers’ expense at that!! You’re living luxuriously you undeserving, bloodsucking creep!
I will give Uncle Bernie credit for one thing: when he was caught, he just owned up to it. He spared the state the expense – and the publicity – of a long trial. He was guilty and he knew it. He’ll accept his medicine (he has no choice). But a lesser man would have fought this and wasted everyone’s time and money. Uncle Bernie Madoff manned up, to his credit.