His death Wednesday at the Federal Medical Center in Butner Prison, North Carolina, was confirmed by the U.S. Prisons Bureau. A cause of death has not been released.
Judge Denny Chin, who was originally sentenced to 150 years, denied his release, calling his crime “one of the most egregious financial crimes of our time” and one that continued to take “an astonishing tribute to the people.”
“When I convicted Mr. Madoff in 2009, I was fully intent on living the rest of his life in prison,” Chin wrote in his order in June last year. “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, he deserved to be punished based on his moral guilt.”
One of the few kind words about Madoff Wednesday came from Brandon Sample, one of his lawyers.
“Bernie, until his death, lived with guilt and remorse for his crimes,” Sample said. “Although the crimes for which Bernie was convicted came to define who he was – he was both father and husband. He was a gentle and intellectual speaker. Bernie was by no means perfect. But no man is.”
He had a legendary career on Wall Street, famously offering astronomical profits to his investors, including director Steven Spielberg, actors Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, and New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon.
He served as president of the Nasdaq for several years in the 1990s and amassed beach houses, boats and a penthouse in Manhattan. But Madoff was arrested in 2008 and pleaded guilty to eleven counts of crime in 2009. He had used money from new investors to reimburse previous investors. He was allegedly given a total of $ 65 billion, but two-thirds of that money was a figure in Bernie Madoff’s imagination. The rest was the principle of its investors.
Madoff founded Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities in 1960, but no one was able to prove when Madoff began stealing from investors.
He told CNNMoney in a 2013 interview that it all started in 1987, but later said the scheme began in 1992. Madoff’s former account manager, Frank DiPascali, Jr., testified in court that the financial facts took place “for a long time as I remember.” He started working for the company in 1975.
Irving Picard, the court-appointed attorney in charge of recovering Madoff’s stolen property, along with the Justice Department, has recovered $ 14.4 billion since March this year, distributing the vast majority to Madoff victims. In addition, Securities Investor Protection Corporation provided the victims with $ 600 million.
Madoff was born on April 29, 1938 in Queens, New York, where he met his wife Ruth in high school. They had two sons, both working for their father’s company. Mark committed suicide in 2010.
Madoff’s brother, Peter, also served a 10-year prison sentence for his involvement in the scheme. He was convicted in 2012.