The disgraced megathief is outraged at the maximum 150-year jail sentence federal Judge Denny Chin dropped on him two years ago.
“Explain to me who else has received a sentence like that,” he griped to The New York Times from federal prison in Butner, NC. “I mean, serial killers get a death sentence, but that’s virtually what he gave me.
“I’m surprised Chin didn’t suggest stoning in the public square,” he said.
But the judge felt anything less than 150 years would be seen as showing mercy to one of history’s greatest financial criminals.
“Frankly, that was not the message I wanted to be sent,” Chin said.
He couldn’t impose a formal life sentence because none of the 11 felonies to which Madoff pleaded guilty carries that penalty. It was up to Chin to pick a number of years — and a low number just seemed wrong.
“Splitting the baby, to me, was sending the wrong message,” he said.
On the weekend before he imposed sentence in June 2009, the judge reviewed the 450 or so e-mails and letters that had come from victims of Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme, many of them middle-class retirees who had lost their nest eggs.
One woman’s story touched him. Her husband had died of a heart attack two weeks after investing his life savings in Madoff’s bogus investments. When she met with Bernie, he put his arm around her and assured her that her money was safe.
“She eventually gave him her own pension, 401(k) funds,” Chin wrote in his notes.
Chin noted he hadn’t received a single letter of support for Madoff. “The absence of such support is telling,” he wrote.
Nevertheless, Madoff’s lawyer, Ira Lee Sorkin, asked for a term of only 12 years, which he argued was “just short of an effective life sentence” for his then-71-year-old client.
But Chin said, “In the end I just thought he didn’t deserve it. The benefits of giving him hope were far outweighed by all of the other considerations.”
When the sentence was handed down, Madoff seemed sad. “But I did not believe he was genuinely remorseful,” Chin told the Times.
Madoff remains bitter. “Quite frankly, there’s a big difference between dying in prison, you know, and dying outside with your family,” he said from prison.
He said it was “totally unrealistic and unfair” for Chin to characterize him as “this monster and this evil person.
“In my mind Chin was anything but fair,” Madoff whined, “with zero understanding of the industry.”
(Source: NY Post)
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15 Responses
If you commit a crime that gets you 5 years in jail, 30 times, that equals 150 years. (example)
Same as if you get 20 speeding tickets of $100 each, you have to pay $2000.
There is no ‘discount’ i.e. 10 felonies for the price of 5!.
Mr Madoff, you committed numerous crimes and you have to pay for each one! Sorry, but that’s life.
He did teshuva, as every yid is able to, by pleading guilty, not contesting the charges, forgoing his appeak and not appealing, admitting his wrongdoing, helping track everything he did and cooperating with the investigators, and apologizing to all his victims.
Let the man live. Life in jail is neither a Jewish punishment nor a just one.
to #2 your right jail is not a Jewish punishment, perhaps we could sell him into slavery to repay the money he stole, or he could simply repay all the money he stole and since he pleaded guilty a Bais Din would even release him.
Since none of the above is going to happen let him rot in jail and suffer, it is only fair when he realize how much suffering he has caused by his acts. As such his punishment in in line with Torah law in the literal sense of an eye for eye.
Don’t forget that his actions also led to the suicide of his son.
my response to poster #2:
If YOU were one of his victims who lost ALL their life savings would you still respond as such? Try even for a second thinking how you would feel about all those dollars saved lost in a blip of a second.
Reading letters to get emotional does not sound like justice to me. Let’s remember that nobody caught him, and noone was after him. If not for his own concience, he could have easily left this country with all the money, too. Does that sound normal, he didn’t desrve a life sentence so he got more!!?
“Explain to me who else has received a sentence like that,” he griped to The New York Times from federal prison in Butner, NC.
explain to ME who else committed the offenses that YOU did….
Whats the point of this post? To be machshil the Tzibur into more Loshon Hora??
He is in jail and thats it, no need to trash the man anymore or have a never ending cycle of Loshon Hora for no Toeles.
I think Judge Chin should reduce the sentence to 75 years. I think that’s a fair compromise.
#2
Total the amount of Hours people spend working minus tax that Madoff took away. Think of it no in the money, but in the amount of life he stole from each person.
Not only is he not playing the disgusting “anti-semitic” card, he is a first time, non-violent offender. Our community has given this same benefit of doubt to others that have not been remorseful at all. How exactly do we turn our compassion on and off so mechanically? It’s almost laughable.
Record crimes receive record punishments because they serve as examples to others. If you steal more money than anyone before you, or leak the most documents, or kill the most people, then don’t expect your punishments to be in line with others who committed those same crimes. Your case will become the example of that offense and must be punished accordingly to teach others how seriously we take those crimes.
Madoff did wrong. But people who do the same thing on Wall Street, “legally”, get taxpayer bailout money so they can get their bonuses, let alone regular paychecks. Also, the corporations that set up overseas accounts with the intent of avoiding taxes to America, are, somehow doing something “legal”? Additionally, every shell company somehow has laws to make what it does “legal”. So much for “legal” having any just meaning to it.
Madoff is a scapegoat. To his credit, for someone pulled a “scam”, during his tenure of scamming, he made OTHER people rich. Further, a lot of people lost hard earned money and retirement portfolios………because of the market and their brokers advice, all of which was “legal”.
I agree with #10 and #2. In Beis Din he would’ve gotten 6 years (or less if shmitta was earlier) as an Eved Ivri and zeh hu. No matter how much he stole.
Has everyone forgotten the people who committed suicide due to losing their life savings to Madoff harasha?
Including his own son who couldn’t live with the embarrassment…and hung himself.