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E-mailPutting Bernie away: A just sentence
Bernie Madoff will spend the rest of his life in prison. No doubt some would argue he should spend his afterlife in prison, too.
Mr. Madoff, 71, perpetrated one of the largest, if not the largest, frauds in Wall Street history. His Ponzi scheme collapsed, as all such schemes usually do, but not before bilking everyone from friends to the famous out of at least $15 billion.
The scheming lasted for at least two decades. Madoff never invested any of the money he took in from those he had taken. And when the economy tanked last year, Madoff was forced to admit that his long-revered investment house was a house of cards.
A federal judge in New York could have sentenced Madoff to as few as 12 years. Even that might have been a life sentence. But, instead, Judge Denny Chin chose to make the example out of a sophisticated and greedy crook that needed to be made -- 150 years in prison.
Madoff's crime is considered a "white-collar crime." That is, there was no physical violence associated with it. As such, he'll serve his time in a minimum- or medium-security facility.
But given the violence he did to the finances of so many trusting people, there's likely not a person on this Earth who doesn't think he shouldn't be thrown in a maximum-security lockup and with all its inherent "benefits."
Bernie Madoff maintains he acted alone. We don't believe him. And that makes it incumbent upon investigators to expose and arrest his accomplices and for the courts to make like examples of them.
