Bernard Madoff will plead guilty Thursday to 11 felony counts including money laundering, perjury and securities fraud that carry a potential prison term of 150 years, his lawyer and prosecutors said Tuesday.

Lawyers outlined the plea arrangement for the 70-year-old former Nasdaq chairman at a hearing Tuesday to resolve several potential conflicts of interest between Madoff and his lawyer, Ira Sorkin.

After questioning Madoff to make sure he understood the potential conflicts, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin ruled that he can retain Sorkin for legal counsel. He also said he was satisfied with the plea arrangement.

“There is no plea bargain here,” Chin said. “Those victims who objected to a plea bargain no longer have a reason to object.” Chin added that he will wait several months to sentence Madoff, who was brought to the courthouse earlier Tuesday in a bulletproof vest.

In a criminal information filed after the hearing, prosecutors outlined their case against the disgraced money manager. They alleged that he ran a massive Ponzi scheme, swindling investors out of billions of dollars, from at least the 1980s until his arrest last Dec. 11.

Madoff has been under house arrest in his $7 million luxury apartment since then, last appearing in court on Jan. 14.

Prosecutors had asked the court to rule on the potential conflict to clear the way for Thursday’s proceeding.

Asked by the judge whether Madoff would plead guilty Thursday, Sorkin said: “I think that’s a fair expectation.”

At least 25 Madoff investors have asked to speak Thursday under provisions allowing victims of crime to appear at a plea hearing.

Attorney Jerry Reisman, who represents more than a dozen Madoff investors, predicted that the plea hearing would be “a zoo.”

“I will tell you my clients are outraged by his being able to escape with a guilty plea,” he said.

But Chin told prosecutors to limit the number of victims who will speak in court, and make sure they conduct themselves in a “respectful and dignified manner.”

Although authorities initially alleged that Madoff swindled investors out of $50 billion, investigators reviewing his company’s books say the size of the actual fraud might have been less than $20 billion. So far, authorities have located about $1 billion.

During the hearing, Sorkin complained that federal authorities have not let defense lawyers study the financial records of Madoff’s firm so they can show that some individuals or financial funds actually received more in payouts over the years than they are claiming they lost. Chin said he understood that Madoff was not agreeing to the extent of the losses alleged by the government.

Although Tuesday’s hearing was expected to be largely procedural, the courthouse was using it as a dry run for Thursday, showing the proceedings on a large screen in a second courtroom and in the juror assembly room, which can fit hundreds of people.

Earlier Tuesday, prosecutors for the first time detailed the financial ties between Madoff and Sorkin as they sought to get Madoff to voluntarily waive his right to conflict-free representation.

The papers said Sorkin’s parents had invested approximately $900,000 with Madoff to create trust accounts for Sorkin’s two sons. They said Sorkin has told the government that he is a trustee of the sons’ trust accounts but has never had a beneficial interest in the money.

Prosecutors also noted that Sorkin once invested $18,860 with Madoff through a retirement account in the early 1990s. They said, however, that they did not believe this represented a conflict because it was liquidated more than a decade ago.

The government said it also believes Madoff can waive any potential conflict of interest caused by Sorkin’s prior representation of two potential witnesses in the case, Frank Avellino and Michael Bienes.

The government said the pair’s accounting firm, Avellion & Bienes, was dissolved after it settled accusations in 1993 by the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had sold unregistered securities and operated as an unregistered investment company from 1962 to 1992.

Prosecutors said Madoff has had a long-standing business relationship with Avellino and Bienes and that money Avellino and Bienes raised from their clients was invested with Madoff.

After Madoff was placed under oath, the judge asked if he was satisfied with Sorkin’s reprensentation. “I am,” he said.

Chin said: “Is it your wish to continue with Mr. Sorkin in thus case?”

Madoff replied, “Yes, your honor.” Then the judge found that the “conflicts here are waivable.”

(Source: Associated Press)