| Specializing In Stock and Securities Fraud Federal Sentence Reductions |
| Federal Prison Survival Programs & Sentence Reductions |
| © 2009 American Prison Consultants |
| Going From The Exchange Floor To The Prison Yard? |
| _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ |
| 888.558.2151 |
| Statutes |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| Larry Levine Prison News Stories |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Behind bars, he may have to fight off prison inmates who want to
squeeze him for money or blame him for the Wall Street crash.
“Madoff isn’t going to be real popular,” said Larry Levine, who
served 10 years in federal prisons for securities fraud and narcotics
trafficking and now advises convicts on surviving time behind bars.
“All the guys there will have wives or parents who are losing their
homes or their jobs or who can’t send money to them anymore.
Everybody’s going to be blaming Bernie.”
The 70-year-old investment adviser was ordered to the 12- story jail
by U.S. District Judge Denny Chin until sentencing, scheduled for
June 16. He faces as much as 150 years in prison.
Madoff ran a $65 billion fraud that fleeced thousands of investors,
including Palm Beach retirees, trustees of Yeshiva University and
Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, who lost his savings and his
foundation’s assets.
The financier was undone by the Wall Street collapse as last year’s
38 percent decline in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index forced his
customers to withdraw money, said Roy Smith, a finance professor
at New York University’s Stern School of Business and former
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. partner.
Monument to ‘Foolishness’
“No one has ever made a Ponzi scheme pay off for so long,” Smith
said of the scam that prosecutors said dated back two decades.
“‘Madoff’ may become a verb. It certainly is already an adjective. We
can replace the old Ponzi scheme with a new Madoff version. It is a
monument to the foolishness of people putting money in these
places.”
Ponzi schemes are named for 1920s financier Charles Ponzi.
Money from new investors goes to pay off previous ones.
Metropolitan Correctional Center, where prisoners await sentencing
or trial, houses “swindlers to murderers,” said Peter Henning, a law
professor at Wayne State University in Detroit.
Ira Sorkin, Madoff’s lawyer, said he would appeal “as soon as
possible” the judge’s decision to jail his client.
“We respectfully disagree,” he said.
A typical day at the MCC begins with lights on at 6 a.m., breakfast 30
minutes later and lights out at 11 p.m., according to Scott Sussman,
a jail spokesman.
‘Bleak’ House
Prisoners “are provided with the opportunity for outside recreation
every other day,” Sussman said in an e-mail. They also can play
ping-pong and watch television in common areas, he said.
The “bleak” MCC is “horrendous,” according to defense attorney
Sam Schmidt, who visits the jail several times a week and
represented Wadih el-Hage, convicted of federal terrorism charges
related to the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Africa. He
visited el-Hage at the facility between 1998 and 2001.
Money manager Martin Armstrong, founder of now-defunct Princeton
Economics International Ltd., spent seven years at the MCC on civil-
contempt charges before pleading guilty to securities fraud. He
started out in the facility’s high-security wing with accused terrorists
because there were no beds in a regular unit, he said in a January
interview, quoting his jailers.
‘They’re Nuts’
“Sometimes they’re good guys,” Armstrong said of his fellow
prisoners. “Sometimes they’re nuts.”
Madoff may be housed in isolation because of his high profile,
Levine said.
“At no time, for security reasons, is an inmate’s housing status
public information,” MCC spokesman Sussman said.
After hunting down victims for decades, Madoff will now become a
target, according to Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist at the David
Geffen School of Medicine of University of California at Los Angeles.
“In the beginning, he will be besieged by mail that will be
threatening and accusatory,” said Dietz, who heads a Newport
Beach, California-based consulting firm that participated in more
than 12,000 criminal investigations, according to its Web site.
“There will be people trying to scam him and people who think he’s
hiding money,” Dietz said. “There will be inmates asking for money,
and you don’t want them to disbelieve you when you say you don’t
have it.”
squeeze him for money or blame him for the Wall Street crash.
“Madoff isn’t going to be real popular,” said Larry Levine, who
served 10 years in federal prisons for securities fraud and narcotics
trafficking and now advises convicts on surviving time behind bars.
“All the guys there will have wives or parents who are losing their
homes or their jobs or who can’t send money to them anymore.
Everybody’s going to be blaming Bernie.”
The 70-year-old investment adviser was ordered to the 12- story jail
by U.S. District Judge Denny Chin until sentencing, scheduled for
June 16. He faces as much as 150 years in prison.
Madoff ran a $65 billion fraud that fleeced thousands of investors,
including Palm Beach retirees, trustees of Yeshiva University and
Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, who lost his savings and his
foundation’s assets.
The financier was undone by the Wall Street collapse as last year’s
38 percent decline in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index forced his
customers to withdraw money, said Roy Smith, a finance professor
at New York University’s Stern School of Business and former
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. partner.
Monument to ‘Foolishness’
“No one has ever made a Ponzi scheme pay off for so long,” Smith
said of the scam that prosecutors said dated back two decades.
“‘Madoff’ may become a verb. It certainly is already an adjective. We
can replace the old Ponzi scheme with a new Madoff version. It is a
monument to the foolishness of people putting money in these
places.”
Ponzi schemes are named for 1920s financier Charles Ponzi.
Money from new investors goes to pay off previous ones.
Metropolitan Correctional Center, where prisoners await sentencing
or trial, houses “swindlers to murderers,” said Peter Henning, a law
professor at Wayne State University in Detroit.
Ira Sorkin, Madoff’s lawyer, said he would appeal “as soon as
possible” the judge’s decision to jail his client.
“We respectfully disagree,” he said.
A typical day at the MCC begins with lights on at 6 a.m., breakfast 30
minutes later and lights out at 11 p.m., according to Scott Sussman,
a jail spokesman.
‘Bleak’ House
Prisoners “are provided with the opportunity for outside recreation
every other day,” Sussman said in an e-mail. They also can play
ping-pong and watch television in common areas, he said.
The “bleak” MCC is “horrendous,” according to defense attorney
Sam Schmidt, who visits the jail several times a week and
represented Wadih el-Hage, convicted of federal terrorism charges
related to the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Africa. He
visited el-Hage at the facility between 1998 and 2001.
Money manager Martin Armstrong, founder of now-defunct Princeton
Economics International Ltd., spent seven years at the MCC on civil-
contempt charges before pleading guilty to securities fraud. He
started out in the facility’s high-security wing with accused terrorists
because there were no beds in a regular unit, he said in a January
interview, quoting his jailers.
‘They’re Nuts’
“Sometimes they’re good guys,” Armstrong said of his fellow
prisoners. “Sometimes they’re nuts.”
Madoff may be housed in isolation because of his high profile,
Levine said.
“At no time, for security reasons, is an inmate’s housing status
public information,” MCC spokesman Sussman said.
After hunting down victims for decades, Madoff will now become a
target, according to Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist at the David
Geffen School of Medicine of University of California at Los Angeles.
“In the beginning, he will be besieged by mail that will be
threatening and accusatory,” said Dietz, who heads a Newport
Beach, California-based consulting firm that participated in more
than 12,000 criminal investigations, according to its Web site.
“There will be people trying to scam him and people who think he’s
hiding money,” Dietz said. “There will be inmates asking for money,
and you don’t want them to disbelieve you when you say you don’t
have it.”
Decades In Jail
Madoff is likely to be looking at decades behind bars, given the
severity of the charges, said Alan Ellis, a Mill Valley, California-
based attorney and co-author of “Federal Prison Guidebook.”
“He’s looking at well over 20 years, probably at least 30,” said Ellis,
former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers in Washington, D.C. “That’s a life sentence for him.”
Madoff didn’t agree to a plea deal with prosecutors because they
demanded he admit to a conspiracy, according to people familiar
with the matter. That would have required him to say he worked with
others in the scheme, they said.
The Queens, New York-born financier is a former Nasdaq Stock
Market chairman and owns a penthouse on Manhattan’s Upper
East Side, vacation homes in Palm Beach and the French Riviera
and a 55-foot Rybovich sport-fishing yacht called “Bull.” He started
his investment business in 1960, at the age of 22, with $5,000
saved from summer jobs.
Aging Convicts
Madoff will likely join a corps of aging white-collar convicts including
former WorldCom Inc. Chief Executive Officer Bernard Ebbers, 67,
now housed at the Federal Correctional Institution in Oakdale,
Louisiana, and John Rigas, 84, the ex-CEO of Adelphia
Communications Corp. who is imprisoned at the Federal
Correctional Institution in Butner, North Carolina.
Ebbers, who was convicted in an $11 billion accounting fraud, is
due for release on July 4, 2028, while Rigas’s sentence for
securities and bank fraud and conspiracy runs until Jan. 23, 2018,
according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons Web site.
Federal prisons carry different designations, ranging from minimum
to maximum, based on levels of security.
The two former CEOs are doing time in low-security prisons
featuring double-fenced perimeters, mostly dormitory housing and
work programs, according to the bureau Web site.
Madoff probably would be assigned to a low- or medium- security
facility, said Levine, whose firm, Wall Street Prison Consultants,
is in Los Angeles. Medium-level lockups usually house inmates in
cells and are ringed with electronic escape- detection systems,
the bureau site says.
‘Least Violent’
Because crimes such as rape and murder are usually prosecuted
under state laws, “in general, the federal system is less violent,”
Henning said. “Madoff will be put in with the least violent.”
Madoff, who is Jewish, may be assigned to one of several U.S.
facilities in the New York area, including the Federal Correctional
Institution in Otisville, N. Y. 70 miles from Manhattan, where ultra-
Orthodox Jews run religious services inside the prison, he said.
The financier may be sent instead to a low-security facility at Fort Dix,
New Jersey. It’s next to a minimum-security camp housing fund
manager Armstrong,who’s serving a five-year sentence for
securities fraud.
11 Counts
Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 counts, including securities, investment-
adviser, mail and wire fraud as well as money laundering and theft
from an employee-benefit plan.
The addition of money-laundering charges “may make this a life
sentence” and push Madoff into a medium-security prison, at least
at first, Ellis said. “Where you end up has as much to do with where
the BOP has a bed open as your sentence.”
Before Madoff’s plea, two judges dismissed a government motion to
revoke his $10 million bail and jail the financier after he sent a
diamond bracelet and watches to friends and relatives in violation of
an asset freeze. He awaited his hearing under house arrest at his
$7 million duplex at 64th Street and Lexington Avenue.
If he’s sent to prison, Madoff will be able to stay in touch with the
outside world via TV and e-mail, according to psychiatrist Dietz. He’ll
have access to cable television and will probably get access to e-
mail, Dietz said.
Unless he qualifies for a medical exemption, Madoff will have to take
a job in prison that will pay anywhere from 12 cents to 40 cents an
hour, Levine said. Offering inmates help with legal or financial
needs might give the investment adviser a certain “diplomatic
immunity,” said Levine, who said he acted as a jailhouse lawyer for
other convicts while behind bars.
“Once he gets in, he’s not getting out except in a box,” he said.
“There is no parole.”
The criminal case is U.S. v. Madoff, 09-cr-00213, U.S. District Court
for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
To contact the reporters on this story: Pat Wechsler in New York at
pwechsler@bloomberg.netDavid Glovin in New York federal court at
dglovin@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: March 12, 2009 14:03 EDT
Madoff is likely to be looking at decades behind bars, given the
severity of the charges, said Alan Ellis, a Mill Valley, California-
based attorney and co-author of “Federal Prison Guidebook.”
“He’s looking at well over 20 years, probably at least 30,” said Ellis,
former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers in Washington, D.C. “That’s a life sentence for him.”
Madoff didn’t agree to a plea deal with prosecutors because they
demanded he admit to a conspiracy, according to people familiar
with the matter. That would have required him to say he worked with
others in the scheme, they said.
The Queens, New York-born financier is a former Nasdaq Stock
Market chairman and owns a penthouse on Manhattan’s Upper
East Side, vacation homes in Palm Beach and the French Riviera
and a 55-foot Rybovich sport-fishing yacht called “Bull.” He started
his investment business in 1960, at the age of 22, with $5,000
saved from summer jobs.
Aging Convicts
Madoff will likely join a corps of aging white-collar convicts including
former WorldCom Inc. Chief Executive Officer Bernard Ebbers, 67,
now housed at the Federal Correctional Institution in Oakdale,
Louisiana, and John Rigas, 84, the ex-CEO of Adelphia
Communications Corp. who is imprisoned at the Federal
Correctional Institution in Butner, North Carolina.
Ebbers, who was convicted in an $11 billion accounting fraud, is
due for release on July 4, 2028, while Rigas’s sentence for
securities and bank fraud and conspiracy runs until Jan. 23, 2018,
according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons Web site.
Federal prisons carry different designations, ranging from minimum
to maximum, based on levels of security.
The two former CEOs are doing time in low-security prisons
featuring double-fenced perimeters, mostly dormitory housing and
work programs, according to the bureau Web site.
Madoff probably would be assigned to a low- or medium- security
facility, said Levine, whose firm, Wall Street Prison Consultants,
is in Los Angeles. Medium-level lockups usually house inmates in
cells and are ringed with electronic escape- detection systems,
the bureau site says.
‘Least Violent’
Because crimes such as rape and murder are usually prosecuted
under state laws, “in general, the federal system is less violent,”
Henning said. “Madoff will be put in with the least violent.”
Madoff, who is Jewish, may be assigned to one of several U.S.
facilities in the New York area, including the Federal Correctional
Institution in Otisville, N. Y. 70 miles from Manhattan, where ultra-
Orthodox Jews run religious services inside the prison, he said.
The financier may be sent instead to a low-security facility at Fort Dix,
New Jersey. It’s next to a minimum-security camp housing fund
manager Armstrong,who’s serving a five-year sentence for
securities fraud.
11 Counts
Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 counts, including securities, investment-
adviser, mail and wire fraud as well as money laundering and theft
from an employee-benefit plan.
The addition of money-laundering charges “may make this a life
sentence” and push Madoff into a medium-security prison, at least
at first, Ellis said. “Where you end up has as much to do with where
the BOP has a bed open as your sentence.”
Before Madoff’s plea, two judges dismissed a government motion to
revoke his $10 million bail and jail the financier after he sent a
diamond bracelet and watches to friends and relatives in violation of
an asset freeze. He awaited his hearing under house arrest at his
$7 million duplex at 64th Street and Lexington Avenue.
If he’s sent to prison, Madoff will be able to stay in touch with the
outside world via TV and e-mail, according to psychiatrist Dietz. He’ll
have access to cable television and will probably get access to e-
mail, Dietz said.
Unless he qualifies for a medical exemption, Madoff will have to take
a job in prison that will pay anywhere from 12 cents to 40 cents an
hour, Levine said. Offering inmates help with legal or financial
needs might give the investment adviser a certain “diplomatic
immunity,” said Levine, who said he acted as a jailhouse lawyer for
other convicts while behind bars.
“Once he gets in, he’s not getting out except in a box,” he said.
“There is no parole.”
The criminal case is U.S. v. Madoff, 09-cr-00213, U.S. District Court
for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
To contact the reporters on this story: Pat Wechsler in New York at
pwechsler@bloomberg.netDavid Glovin in New York federal court at
dglovin@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: March 12, 2009 14:03 EDT
| Madoff Life Prison Term Means Inmate Blame For Crash By Pat Wechsler and David Glovin |
March 12 (Bloomberg) --
Bernard Madoff, who pleaded
guilty today to masterminding
the largest Ponzi scheme in
history, was sent by a federal
judge to the Metropolitan
Correctional Center, a
“horrendous” jail in lower
Manhattan that houses
swindlers and murderers.
Bernard Madoff, who pleaded
guilty today to masterminding
the largest Ponzi scheme in
history, was sent by a federal
judge to the Metropolitan
Correctional Center, a
“horrendous” jail in lower
Manhattan that houses
swindlers and murderers.
