Madoff Sentenced to 150 Years for Ponzi Scheme

-
Here is a summary of the sentencing from CNN.

Judge Denny Chin of U.S. District Court in New York announced the sentence just moments after Madoff apologized to his victims.

"I live in a tormented state for all the pain and suffering I created," Madoff said. "I left a legacy of shame. It is something I will live with for the rest of my life."

Turning to face some of his victims, he addressed them directly: "Saying I'm sorry is not enough. I turn to face you. I know it will not help. I'm sorry."

Madoff said he was not asking for forgiveness and not offering any excuses for his behavior.

"How can you excuse betraying thousands of investors?" he asked. "How can you excuse deceiving hundreds of employees? How can you excuse lying to and deceiving your wife who still stands by you?"

Victims urged a judge to hand down the maximum life sentence against Bernard Madoff, the mastermind of the largest and most sweeping Ponzi scheme ever. "We implore you to give the maximum sentence at a maximum prison for this deplorable low life," said one of the victims in court before Madoff spoke. "This is a violent crime without a tangible weapon."

Many of Madoff's investors were wiped out financially by the scam and sent letters to Judge Chin requesting he spend the rest of his life behind bars. Nine of the letter-writers were expected to speak in court on Monday.

Speaking on behalf of his wife and looking at Madoff, the victim said, "I have a marriage made in heaven. You have [a] marriage made in hell, and that's where you'll return. May God spare you no mercy."

The 150-year sentence is the maximum that federal prosecutors in New York requested, based on the number of Madoff's victims, the amount of money he stole and the extent of the damage he caused.

Judge Chin said that the Federal Department of Probation had recommended a 50-year sentence.

Madoff, who was stripped of his property in a legal action Friday, confessed on March 12 to running a massive Ponzi scheme. He pleaded guilty to 11 criminal counts, including fraud, money laundering, perjury, false filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other crimes.

Lawyer Ira Lee Sorkin, who represents Madoff, asked for a 12-year sentence. In a letter to the judge, Sorkin explained that his 71-year-old client "has an approximate life expectancy of 13 years" and isn't likely to outlive the requested sentence by more than a year.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Korea Considering Adopting Plea Bargaining System

-
According to the Korea Times , South Korea is considering implementation of a plea bargaining system, and the lead prosecutor has stated that the system would initially be utilized for corruption cases. If these plans move forward, this will offer a unique opportunity to observe a criminal justice system's implementation of plea bargaining from the beginning. The prosecution is seeking to adopt plea-bargaining for corruption cases. Prosecutor General Lim Chae-jin stressed the importance of criminal law reform, including the introduction of a plea bargaining system, at the prosecution's 60th anniversary ceremony held in southern Seoul, Friday. "It is time for Korea's judiciary to adopt plea-bargaining to a limited extent, such as in bribery cases, in order to effectively punish corruption, which is getting more complex,'' Lim said. Plea-bargaining is an agreement whereby the prosecution offers a lighter punishment to a criminal suspect in exchange for admitting...
Read more

The Pursuit Podcast - Pressured to Plead Guilty

-
Readers of this blog will be interested to listen to the recently released podcast from The Pursuit  entitled "Pressured to Plead Guilty." In the podcast, I offer thoughts on the role of plea bargaining in the modern American criminal justice system. The podcast also features  Clark Neily (Vice President for Criminal Justice at the Cato Institute), Kevin Ring (President of Families Against Mandatory Minimums), and Molly Gill (Vice President of Policy at Families Against Mandatory Minimums).  The podcast does a wonderful job of weaving together  policy considerations and the history of plea bargaining with the story of  Kevin Ring's difficult decision whether to take a plea deal in return for a significant offer of leniency.  Thank you to Landry Ayres and the Cato Institute for putting together such an informative and engaging discussion of plea bargaining. It was an honor to appear on the program. As I said in my closing thoughts during the podcast, "[...
Read more

New Article Explores the Psychology of False Pleas of Guilty

-
In a new article authored by Prof. Lucian Dervan, Dr. Vanessa Edkins, and Prof. Thea Johnson, the authors explore the forces that lead to false pleas of guilty through examination of two cases of serial offenders who remained undetected for significant periods of time in part because others were initially coerced into false pleas of guilty in the cases.  Access a free copy of the article here . From the introduction: The last decade has seen significant growth in academic research and literature related to the plea bargaining system. In particular, much research has explored the impact of plea bargaining on the accused, including the phenomena of false guilty pleas by the innocent and false testimony in return for bargains. Both false guilty pleas and false testimony often result from the coercive bargaining practices regularly found in the criminal system. Plea bargaining is coercive when it overbears the will of the defendant, to borrow a phrase from the Supreme Court’s decision ...
Read more