Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff is being held in a super-max wing of the Manhattan federal lockup – a unit so tough it drives hardened criminals mad, the Daily News reports.
It’s known as 10 South.
Located on the 10th floor of the Metropolitan Correctional Center, the high-security wing has housed the city’s toughest mobsters and most bloodthirsty terrorists.
John A. (Junior) Gotti was there, as well as his archrival, Michael (Mikey Scars) DiLeonardo.
On 10 South, the 70-year-old Madoff is treated more like a lab rat than a vaunted Wall Street financier once entrusted with billions of investment dollars.
The lights burn 24 hours a day, and an inmate’s every move is caught on video. Madoff gets just 60 minutes a day outside his 8-by-8-foot cell – in wrist shackles.
Windows are blacked out so disoriented inmates can’t catch even a glimpse of the world outside.
What passes for food is slipped through a narrow slit in a stainless steel door that fronts a spartan cell – cold in winter, scorching hot in summer.
No interaction is permitted between inmates or guards. Only a ranking officer is allowed to remove a prisoner from his tiny cell.
Lawyer visits are few and far between. Reading material is almost nonexistent.
“He might even be sharing a cell with somebody, because he’s a nonviolent prisoner,” said onetime guard Louis Pepe, who was stabbed by a 10 South inmate in 2000.
“Everybody is watching him extra close,” Pepe said.
The squalid conditions are enough to make blood-stained tough guys cry – never mind a pampered ex-billionaire.
Bonanno crime family capo Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano was moved off 10 South in 2005 after his lawyer complained of “subhuman” conditions.
Junior Gotti said his hard time in the MCC’s most infamous section was brutal.
“I was in 10 South, and it almost broke me,” Gotti famously roared.
Imagine its impact on a first-time offender used to a $7 million East Side penthouse with a bedroom drawer filled with cuff links and a $39,000 Steinway piano in the living room.
“I had a guy in there who went bonkers,” said one veteran defense lawyer. “They had to take him out of there and give him sedatives.”
Several sources confirm Madoff was visited by his lawyers in 10 South since his $10 million bail was revoked last week pending his June 16 sentencing.
When his lawyers hit court today, asking an appeals panel to restore his bail, Madoff won’t accompany them. He’ll remain inside his grim new home.
Lawyers say this could just be a way station for Madoff while prison officials gauge his physical and mental well-being.
Or it could be his home away from home for the months to come before he’s shipped off to a faraway prison to serve a likely life sentence.
It was in 10 South in 2000 that a desperate terrorist named Mamdouh Mahmud Salim fashioned a tiny spear by sharpening a comb on the underside of a concrete desk in his cell before plunging it into Pepe’s eye.
The comb penetrated Pepe’s brain and permanently impaired his speech. Salim was convicted of conspiracy in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa that left 200 dead.
Among Madoff’s neighbors is Syed Hashmi, a 28-year-old former Brooklyn College political science major accused of providing military gear to Al Qaeda terrorists overseas.
In recent months, Hashmi’s lawyers tried unsuccessfully to get a federal judge to ease his restrictive prison conditions. In August, a prison video camera caught Hashmi shadow-boxing and practicing martial arts in his cell, federal prosecutors say.
“This type of confinement right now, I believe, is abominable,” Hashmi lawyer Sean Maher told Judge Loretta Preska.
(Source: NY Daily News)
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21 Responses
Strange, the usual posts requesting the recital of tehillim for the subject of the article seem to be absent here.
Something’s odd about this report.
First, it claims “The lights burn 24 hours a day, and an inmate’s every move is caught on video.” and “No interaction is permitted between inmates or guards.”.
Later on, however, it reports that “a desperate terrorist named Mamdouh Mahmud Salim fashioned a tiny spear by sharpening a comb on the underside of a concrete desk in his cell before plunging it into Pepe’s eye.”
So, which is it? Is every move monitored and there’s no interaction between inmates or not?
He’s in jail.
Get over your vindictiveness.
The Israeli justice system should look at this prison’s condition. The terrorist murderers in their jails don’t deserve better than white collar criminals in the US.
Prison should not be a country club. However, this place reminds me of the unspeakable prison in “The Count of Monte Cristo.” Also, Madoff needs to be punished, but he is not in the same league as the Mafia or terrorists.
danielb43,
You are right he isn’t in the same league in some ways he is worse. The Mafia as far as I know doesn’t go after innocent civillians and terrorists are somewhat open with their threats and plans. Madoff was an lying theif who broke the faith and trust of thousands, brought trust to a new low and caused untold pain and anguish. Besides the anti-semtism that he’s fueled. He deserves no less than what he’s getting if anything he should be hung.
Im already feeling all the softees and “rachmonim” coming out here feeling bad for him from the above few comments and the lack of any other.
How would you all feel if it was YOUR last dollar and YOUR life savings that this swindler took from YOUR family?
He hurt alot more people and charities globally than Gotti or a terrorist.
Until his wife can buy the prison building with the money she still has and rehab his cell, let him enjoy the 10th floor penthouse of the MCF for life.
what a joke; in america if you kill someone you are better off than if you rob someone. thats because americans value money over life
#8-brilliant insight–so sad and true.
To #8:
You are right! Take OJ Simpson. Double murder in the most horrific way, is biseder! Taking back something that belonged to him – now that is an unacceptable crime! Life sentence!
Upside down justice!
Does anyone have any relible sources as to what punnishment he deserves “al pee din Torah”? We certainly shouln’t wish him worse then that.
#8, 9. I think it was comedian Sam Levenson who said something to the effect that if we properly decorated the buildings we really venerate, we’d have stained glass in banks.
I think SammyJoe got much closer to the truth than did the comments that preceded his.
However much money Mr. Madoff may have stolen and despite all the emotional devastation that resulted, this is clearly not the what a Beis Din would have sentenced him to.
When a convicted murderer is taken out for his capital sentence, the mishna in sanhedrin tells us that beis din announces “ploni ben ploni yotzei leihareig” – whoever may have an alibi for this man should come forth and tell us. If anyone or even the victim himself, says I have something to say as a defense of the convicted murderer, the court stops the proceedings and brings the convict back to court to hear the latest argument. This can repeat itself ad infinitum as long as there is some substance to the claims. That’s one example of the Torah’s mercy on one who is a convicted murderer. Yet all you bashers are so sure that Mr. Madoff deserves no mercy?
He is not a murderer. He did not physically assault anyone. He admitted to deceiving people and stealing a lot of money. As terrible is that is, we are still rachamanim binei rachamanim.
“Prison should not be a country club. However, this place reminds me of the unspeakable prison in “The Count of Monte Cristo.”
I agree. He should not be subjected to torture, which is worse than death, to many people.
Fine him, and make him work the rest of his life to pay back his victims. What benefit is there for the victims in torturing him?
if he is anyway going away for life, why house him in this very expensive cell in nyc until sentencing- just ship him off already-
HaRochem al ha’achzor etc.
This is his well deserved fate. How many people has helped? Nobody has ever mentioned that! Are there any? How many people and charities he has hurt! Countless! And with his big broad smile in court to top it off!
Bernie, enjoy your new home!
You’ve asked for it, you got it!
I have given my own quistion some thought. Of course he must return what he stole. Maybe double. But he cannot. So he gets sold as an “Eved Ivri”. We all know how well an “Eved Ivri” must be treated by his master.
I’m still interested in anyones further insight on this.
I have heard that a person has to come back to this world as a gilgul to pay back (maybe even plus interest!)any chovos he leaves this world with, so if anybody can figure out how many times Bernie needs to come back, please share the chesbon with me.
Shouldn’t we be getting a Rov to come and learn with him, maybe the Babas would be a place to start?
Can somebody explain to me all these comments relating to “Bais Din” & this “Al Pi Torah” stuff?
He broke American law and his punishment is a result of the American justice system.
What’s not “Al Pi Torah” about that?
let’s all keep doing what the goyim are doing – pointing at the jewish scandal and make it bigger -so it comes back to haunt us with anti semitism. We should be silent and hope that Harahaman will have mercy on him and his victims. But what about the people that earned the others money ? should they give it back?