His death Wednesday at the Federal Medical Center in the prison in Butner, North Carolina, was confirmed by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. A cause of death has not been released.
Judge Denny Chin, who originally imposed a 150-year sentence, rejected his request for release, calling his crime “one of the most serious financial crimes of our time,” and one that carries a staggering human toll. kept claiming.
“When I sentenced Mr Madoff in 2009, it was my intention that he should spend the rest of his life in prison,” the Chin wrote in his June order. ‘The symbolism of a 150-year sentence was important: the public’s confidence was weakened by the ability of Mr. Madoff for manipulating the system for so many years, and deserves to be punished according to his moral guilt. ‘
One of the few kind words about Madoff Wednesday comes from Brandon Sample, one of his lawyers.
“Bernie lived with guilt and remorse for his crimes until his death,” Sample said. “Although the crimes Bernie was convicted of determined who he was – he was also a father and a husband. He was gentle and intellectual. Bernie was by no means perfect. But no one is.”
He has had a legendary career on Wall Street, delivering famous astronomical returns to his investors, including director Steven Spielberg, actors Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, and Fred Wilpon, owner of the New York Mets.
He was chairman of the Nasdaq for several years in the 1990s, assembling beach houses, boats, and a penthouse in Manhattan. But Madoff was arrested in 2008 and pleaded guilty in 2009 to eleven counts of guilt. He used money from new investors to pay back previous investors. He may have had a total of $ 65 billion under management, but two-thirds of the money was a figment of Bernie Madoff’s imagination. The rest was his investors’ principle.
Madoff founded Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities in 1960, but no one could prove it when Madoff started stealing from investors.
He said in an interview with CNNMoney in 2013 that it all started in 1987, but he later said the scheme started in 1992. Madoff’s former account manager Frank DiPascali, Jr., testified in court that financial crimes had been going on for so long. as I remember. ‘He started working for the firm in 1975.
“The pain the victims of Mr Madoff’s fraud are experiencing is not diminished by his death, and our work on behalf of his victims has not been completed either,” Picard said. “My legal team and I are committed to continuing to identify and recover Mr. Madoff’s stolen funds and return them to their rightful owners.”
Madoff was born on April 29, 1938, in Queens, New York, where he met his wife, Ruth, in high school. They had two sons, both of whom worked for their father’s firm. Mark Madoff, the older boy, died of suicide in 2010.
Madoff’s brother Peter also served ten years in prison for his involvement in the scheme. He was sentenced in 2012 and was released from prison in November 2019 to home protection. His house arrest ended in August last year.