http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/business/30madoff.html?_r=1&ref=global-home&pagewanted=print
June 30, 2009 Madoff Is Sentenced to 150 Years for Ponzi Scheme By JACK HEALY For one brief moment on Monday morning, Bernard L. Madoff stood up in a federal courtroom in Manhattan and turned to face the people who lost their life savings to his huge Ponzi scheme. "I'm sorry," he told them. "I know that doesn't help you." What did help some of the victims - if anything could - was the sentence Mr. Madoff received minutes later: 150 years in prison for operating one of the largest frauds in Wall Street history, an operation that ensnared millionaires, private foundations, a Nobel Prize laureate and hundreds of small investors who lost their life savings to an investment guru they had trusted completely. In pronouncing the sentence - the maximum he could have handed down - Judge Denny Chin turned aside Mr. Madoff's own assertions of remorse and rejected the suggestion from Mr. Madoff's lawyers that there was a sense of "mob vengeance" surrounding calls for a long prison term. Mr. Madoff's crimes, the judge said, were "extraordinarily evil." "Objectively speaking, the fraud here was staggering," Judge Chin said. "It spanned more than 20 years." The sentencing came at the end of an emotional 90-minute hearing in which victims of the $65 billion fraud urged the judge to show no mercy and described how their lives had been upended by Mr. Madoff. They told of working three jobs to get by, losing their retirement, waking up one day to the shock of learning that their savings and investments had vanished. After the victims spoke, Mr. Madoff himself stood up from the defense table to acknowledge the damage he had inflicted and express regret. "I'm responsible for a great deal of suffering and pain, I understand that," the 71-year-old financier told the court. "I live in a tormented state now, knowing all of the pain and suffering that I've created. I've left a legacy of shame, as some of my victims have pointed out, to my family and my grandchildren." Prosecutors said Mr. Madoff deserved the maximum term - representing a life sentence and more for the disgraced financier - for perpetrating one of the biggest investment frauds in Wall Street history. Mr. Madoff's own lawyers said he should receive only 12 years. Mr. Madoff wore a charcoal gray suit, cream shirt and a knit tie and sat at a polished wood table, surrounded by his lawyers. Prosecutors sat opposite them, and the viewing gallery was crowded with onlookers. The hearing opened shortly after 10 a.m. with statements from victims of the Madoff scheme, who stood at a lectern and told wrenching stories of how they had lost everything, and were now working several jobs and living hand-to-mouth. They fought through tears, connected Mr. Madoff to villains from Dante's "Inferno," spoke of their feelings of betrayal and mistrust, and described how their families had lost money that would have gone to caring for disabled relatives. "How could someone do this to us?" said Dominic Ambrosino, a retired New York City corrections officer who said he lost his life savings with Mr. Madoff and was the first victim to speak. "We worked honestly and so hard." Another victim, Sharon Lissauer, who said she invested all of her savings with Mr. Madoff, told the court: "He should spend his whole life in jail. He's ruined so many people's lives. He killed my spirit and shattered my dreams." After Mr. Madoff's victims finished speaking, his lawyer, Ira Lee Sorkin, stood up and said the government's request for a 150-year sentence bordered on absurd. He called Mr. Madoff a "deeply flawed individual," but a human being nonetheless. "Vengeance is not the goal of punishment," Mr. Sorkin said. Even with a lesser term, Mr. Sorkin added, Mr. Madoff expects to "live out his years in prison." But in meting out the maximum sentence, Judge Chin pointed out that no friends, family or other supporters had submitted any letters on Mr. Madoff's behalf, attesting to the strength of his character or good deeds he had done. Even Mr. Madoff's wife, Ruth, whose own awareness of his business dealings has been a major unanswered question, issued a statement on Monday distancing herself from him. "All those touched by this fraud feel betrayed, disbelieving the nightmare they woke to," she said. "I am embarrassed and ashamed. Like everyone else, I feel betrayed and confused. The man who committed this horrible fraud is not the man whom I have known for all these years." She was not in court for the sentencing hearing. Mr. Madoff was expected to return to his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan while federal prison officials determine where he will serve his sentence. The judge indicated that Mr. Madoff would be imprisoned somewhere in the Northeast. The hearing on Monday marked a climactic moment in the criminal case against Mr. Madoff, whose name has become synonymous with greed and fraud on Wall Street. Dozens of photographers and television camera crews from New York to Britain to China waited outside the federal district courthouse on Pearl Street as reporters, legal teams and Mr. Madoff's victims filed toward the courtroom. "We're hoping for a big sentence only as a deterrent," Cynthia Friedman, who said she lost her life savings with Mr. Madoff, said outside the courtroom. "He can't hurt us anymore." It was a scene reminiscent of the morning in March when Mr. Madoff walked into the same courthouse with his lawyers and pleaded guilty to a series of counts of fraud, theft and perjury. This time, however, Mr. Madoff was brought to court from his jail cell. Mr. Madoff's case was playing out amid a tangle of lawsuits, criminal and civil investigations, and competing claims for restitution prompted by revelations of the outsize fraud at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. It will be at least another three months before the judge makes a decision on repaying the victims. Prosecutors requested more time to sift through Mr. Madoff's records to determine how much was lost and how many people are owed. About three dozen Madoff victims staged a rally in nearby Foley Square after the sentencing to press their case for restitution. Most of the victims who spoke blamed the Securities and Exchange Commission for missing multiple warning signs of the fraud. They also accused Irving H. Picard, the court-appointed trustee charged with gathering what is left of Mr. Madoff's assets, of flouting the law by not honoring their claims with the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, which insures customers when brokerage firms fail. "S.I.P.C. is a scam," said one Madoff victim, Stanley Hirschhorn, who traveled from Manalapan, N.J., with his wife and daughter. "Goldman Sachs pays $150 a year in fees to S.I.P.C., and if one day they were discovered to be running a $2 billion Ponzi scheme, there wouldn't be enough to reimburse everyone." Mr. Madoff's accountant, David G. Friehling, was charged with securities fraud in March, and is so far the only other person to face criminal charges connected to the Ponzi scheme. A New York financier, J. Ezra Merkin, whose clients lost $2 billion with Mr. Madoff has been charged with fraud and deception in a civil suit by the New York State attorney general. The inspector general of the S.E.C. is examining how regulators failed for years to catch Mr. Madoff. Investment funds that channeled money to Mr. Madoff have been sued, and two have agreed to return millions they withdrew before Mr. Madoff's December arrest. For decades, Mr. Madoff built his reputation - and his client base - on the promise of healthy returns that flowed in as reliably as the tides. Big hedge funds and notables like Elie Wiesel and Sandy Koufax entrusted their money to Mr. Madoff's investment business, but so did hundreds of retirees and smaller investors. But the reliable returns and monthly investment statements simply masked a Ponzi scheme that attracted new money to pay existing investors and finance his operating costs. When the cash ran out, the illusion imploded. Zachery Kouwe and Diana B. Henriques contributed reporting. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
