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He plead guilty to all eleven counts.
Apparently at some point in the last decade, Madoff realized that someday, someone was going to find out about his scheme, but he didn't stop, he just kept taking peoples' money!. . . .
Madoff pleaded guilty to charges including fraud, perjury and money-laundering, telling the judge that the scheme began in the early 1990s, when the country was in a recession and the market was not doing well.
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"When I began the Ponzi scheme I believed it would end shortly and I would be able to extricate myself and my clients from the scheme," he said. "However, this proved difficult, and ultimately impossible, and as the years went by I realized that my arrest and this day would inevitably come."
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http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/27/wiesel.madoff/Wiesel said he is planning legal action against Madoff but called for the federal government to bail out charities just as it has bailed out carmakers and banks.
"I think it would be a great gesture that the Obama administration should show, we really think of those who are helpless and who are doing with their money only good things."
He pleaded guilty to 11 offenses, many of which played out over many years. Next for the prosecution should be Madoff's wife and relatives that profited from his thievery. It's a drop in the bucket, but she's parked in a $7M penthouse and has vacation properties all over the world, and those should all be forfeited. The fiction that "she didn't know" is a slap in the face to the investors who were cleaned out by the Madoffs.mgb_phys said:It was his first offence !
I know it is functionally about the same, but I think it would have been nice if they had charged him with a couple hundred thousand separate offenses, one for each money transaction into or out of his fund.turbo-1 said:He pleaded guilty to 11 offenses, many of which played out over many years.
LowlyPion said:The most incredible thing I've heard about this case is Elie Wiesel's call for a Federal bail out for Madoff's thievery.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/27/wiesel.madoff/
Fuggedaboutit, unless the Government plans on getting into bailing out the victims of the stock market, and CNBC's Cramer pumping stocks to unsustainable levels.
Robert Maxwell's sons were directors of his company when it stole $1Bn of pension funds - they didn't even get disqualified as directors.turbo-1 said:Next for the prosecution should be Madoff's wife and relatives that profited from his thievery.
That's a good point, Russ. Or at a minimum, he should have been charged for every single person and group that he victimized.russ_watters said:I know it is functionally about the same, but I think it would have been nice if they had charged him with a couple hundred thousand separate offenses, one for each money transaction into or out of his fund.
Proton Soup said:no need to throw the book at him. save some charges in case he earns some acquittals. ;)
maybe let him out on bail and let nature take it's course? I'd rather see some disclosure and claw-back.LowlyPion said:He pled guilty to 15 felonies today. I'm not seeing much opportunity for reversing.
If he really cheated the Russian Mafia as I have seen discussed, I'd think the term of his sentencing may not be a big issue.
LowlyPion said:He pled guilty to 15 felonies today. I'm not seeing much opportunity for reversing.
If he really cheated the Russian Mafia as I have seen discussed, I'd think the term of his sentencing may not be a big issue.
Ivan Seeking said:By all accounts that I've heard, it was a very sophisticated sham that tricked even seasoned and sophisticated Wall Street investors. And it isn't like they lost their money; it was stolen.
It would seem to me that if Bernie Madoff is truly remorseful, he would be working very hard to help authorities identify where the money went. Still more to come in this case I guess.NEW YORK – Bernard Madoff and his wife had $823 million in assets at the end of last year, including $22 million in properties stretching from New York to the French Riviera, a $7 million yacht and a $2.2 million boat named "Bull," according to a document his lawyers filed Friday.
The document, prepared for the Securities and Exchange Commission at the end of last year, was contained in papers filed with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in an effort to get Madoff freed on bail.
Among the couple's assets: a $12 million half share in a plane, $65,000 in silverware and a $39,000 piano. It values their four properties — in Manhattan, Montauk, Palm Beach, Fla., and Cap d'Antibes, France — at $22 million, and the furniture, fine art and household goods in the homes at $8.7 million.
But the bulk of Madoff's assets, according to the document, consists of an estimated $700 million value put on his investment business. Madoff said during his plea that the market making and proprietary trading side of his business were "legitimate, profitable and successful in all respects."
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Among those under scrutiny is Madoff's wife, Ruth, who withdrew $15.5 million from a Madoff-related brokerage firm in the weeks before Madoff's Dec. 11 arrest, including a $10 million withdrawal on Dec. 10.
Passing references to Ruth Madoff during her husband's guilty plea Thursday drew laughter from a mocking audience of investors still bristling over a disclosure several weeks ago that she wants to keep $69 million in assets, including the couple's $7 million Manhattan penthouse.
In addition, she faces potential civil litigation as a result of the collapse of her husband's financial empire. Her lawyer has declined to comment.
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I'm fairly certain that there were many innocent bystanders in this who trusted madoff. in and of itself I would not think that worthy of a bail out but I hear that authorities had been presented with credible evidence that madoff was involved in illegal financial activities 10 or more years ago. I can see how one could argue the merit of a government bailout in the case of negligence on the part of the federal authorities.LowlyPion said:The most incredible thing I've heard about this case is Elie Wiesel's call for a Federal bail out for Madoff's thievery.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/27/wiesel.madoff/
Fuggedaboutit, unless the Government plans on getting into bailing out the victims of the stock market, and CNBC's Cramer pumping stocks to unsustainable levels.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bernard-madoff-sentenced-to-150-years-in-prisonBernard Madoff Sentenced to 150 Years in Prison
The article goes on about other possible plazas...Just where he will be sent is up to the Bureau of Prisons. Lawyers say that the potentially long sentence and the severity of the fraud to which he has confessed makes it unlikely he will go to the minimum-security "Club Fed" camps that some of his fellow white-collar criminals have inhabited.
The Bureau of Prisons denies any of the camps have golf courses, but they do have amenities. Some have no fences, for example, like the facility in Loretto, Pa. Some have soccer and baseball fields, including the McKean County Federal Correction Institution at Bradford, Pa., and Allenwood, in White Deer, Pa.
Allenwood, which was home to Watergate figure G. Gordon Liddy for a few years in the 1970s, is where many people from the New York region end up because of its proximity to the city. Prisoners bunk in pairs in 80-person dormitories there and are allowed to play ping pong and learn horticulture. The complex has low-, medium- and high security facilities.
Then again, Allenwood tends to be home to convicted mobsters, and seeing as Madoff made a few enemies in that line of work, Allenwood might not be the most secure facility for him.
Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 counts of fraud, including securities fraud, investment adviser fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering.
Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison for his guilty plea to 11 counts of fraud.
Madoff was the mastermind behind the largest Ponzi scheme in history, which defrauded thousands of investors of billions of dollars.
Madoff's guilty plea provided some closure for his victims, but they still suffered significant financial losses and many continue to seek restitution.
Madoff's guilty plea exposed the flaws in the financial system and highlighted the need for stricter regulations and oversight to prevent similar fraud schemes in the future.