Madoff Made Off With Billions – Now Sentenced to Jail
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So the largest financial swindle in history ended Monday. The judge proclaimed, “Bernard L. Madoff shall be and hereby is sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 150 years.”
Bernie Madoff is the perpetrator of a $65 billion Ponzi scheme that spanned several decades and took thousands of victims. The 150-year sentence is essentially a life sentence as the 71-year-old Madoff is very unlikely to outlive his sentence.
A Ponzi scheme is where someone claims to own a company or “know” someone that has access to investments that have very good returns and are “guaranteed.” This person actually doesn’t invest the money from “clients” (victims), but uses new investors’ money to pay returns to older investors. This is how he gains trust from the investors by paying regular dividends. This makes it seem legitimate. But obviously it’s a scam from the beginning.
Madoff is believed to have started his elaborate scam in the 1980s, but his luck and his money ran out last December when too many investors wanted to cash out.
Some notable Madoff victims include actor Kevin Bacon, Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, Director Steven Spielberg’s charity, former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, and actor John Malkovich.
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2 Comments on this post
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Auto Insurance Rates Guy said:
This is a really strange case. The more you read about Maddoff, the more you begin to realize that he was a good person who would have made tons of money even if he didn’t lie and cheat to get it. His remorse shows that he’s a compassionate man, and others have said as much, and yet it seems that he was driven by something within himself to commit these crimes for money he didn’t need.
July 1st, 2009 at 4:58 pm -
Affacturage said:
Many of his victims lost their entire life savings, placed into Madoff’s clutches at the promise of 10 to 12 per cent returns.
July 5th, 2009 at 6:06 am