Madoff Gets 150 Years

June 29, 2009

The sentencing just came down in the Bernie Madoff trial. The sentence is for 150 years in prison. The judge basically threw the book at him:

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.

"Objectively speaking, the fraud here was staggering," the judge said. "It spanned more than 20 years."

The sentencing came at the end of a 90-minute hearing in which victims of the $65 billion fraud told a packed courtroom that the judge should show no mercy and 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."

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