Bernie Madoff, Notorious Ponzi Scheme, Dies | CNN Business (2023)

NY CNN business—

Bernard Madoff, whose name has become synonymous with financial fraud, died while serving a 150-year sentence in federal prison. He was 82 years old.

His death Wednesday at the Federal Medical Center at Butner Prison in North Carolina was confirmed by the US Bureau of Prisons, but the cause of death was not disclosed.

In February 2020, he petitioned the courts for early release from custody, saying that was the caseEnd stage renal failureand a life expectancy of less than 18 months. But the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said Madoff's crime was "unprecedented in scope and magnitude" and "reasonable enough" for itDeny Madoff's request.

Madoff was the mastermind behind a $20 billion Ponzi scheme: thelargest financial fraud in history.

Judge Denny Chin, who originally imposed the 150-year sentence, denied his request for release, calling his crime "one of the most heinous financial crimes of our time" and one that continued to exact "an appalling human cost."

"When I convicted Mr. Madoff in 2009, it was my intention that he spend the rest of his life in prison," Chin wrote in his order last June. "The symbolism of a 150-year sentence was important: public confidence had been eroded by Mr. Madoff's ability to manipulate the system for so many years that he deserved to be punished according to his moral guilt."

One of the few kind words about Madoff Wednesday came from Brandon Sample, one of his attorneys.

"Bernie lived with guilt and remorse for his crimes until his death," Sample said. “While the crimes for which Bernie was convicted shaped who he was, he was also a father and husband. He was quiet and intellectual. Bernie wasn't perfect by any means. But no man is.

He had a legendary career on Wall Street, famous for generating astronomical returns for his investors, which included director Steven Spielberg, actors Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, and New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon.

For several years in the 1990s, he was chairman of Nasdaq and amassed beach houses, boats and a penthouse in Manhattan. But Madoff was arrested in 2008 and pleaded guilty to 11 counts in 2009. He had used money from new investors to pay off previous investors. He is said to have amassed $65 billion under management, but two-thirds of that money was Bernie Madoff's pipe dream. The rest was the principle of their investors.

Madoff founded Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities in 1960, but no one has been able to prove when Madoff began robbing investors.

He told CNNMoney in a 2013 interview that it all started in 1987, but later said the program started in 1992. Madoff's former account manager, Frank DiPascali, Jr., told the court that financial crimes "continue for so long." as far as I can remember." He started working for the company in 1975.

Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee charged with working with the Justice Department to recover Madoff's stolen assets, had done sohas recovered $14.4 billion through March of this year, of which $13.6 billion was repaid to Madoff's victims. In addition, the Securities Investor Protection Corporation provided victims with $600 million in insurance.

"The pain experienced by victims of Mr. Madoff's fraud is not diminished by his death, nor is our work on behalf of his victims finished," Picard said. "My legal team and I are committed to continuing to identify and recover Mr. Madoff's stolen funds and to return them to their rightful owners."

Madoff was born on April 29, 1938 in the borough of Queens, New York, where he met his wife, Ruth, in high school. They had two sons, both of whom worked in their father's company. Mark Madoff, the eldest son, committed suicide in 2010.

Madoff's brother Peter was also serving a 10-year sentence for his involvement in the program. He was convicted in 2012 and released from custody in November 2019, on house arrest. His house arrest ended in August last year.