The Bernard Madoff Sentencing Circus, Starring A Caged Bear, Satan, And Michael Imperioli
Yesterday, Bernard Madoff – Diet Coke drinker, Neil Diamond fan and $65bn fraudster – was given a life sentence for orchestrating the giant Ponzi scheme that left Kevin Bacon without any life savings. The farcical nature of American sentencing means that actually he got nearly two life sentences, 150 years, presumably insuring against spectacular advances in science over the next few years that would allow Madoff to live to 221 years old. One wonders why the judge didn’t go the whole hog and sentence him to “like, a squillion years”.
Still, it sends the message that this was a Very Bad Thing that Madoff did, and there were cheers in the courtroom from wronged investors. They were given the opportunity before the sentencing to testify, and did so rather luridly. “He walks among us. He dresses like us … but underneath the facade is a true beast. He has fed upon us”, said Sheryl Weinstein with full Old Testament bombast; “He discarded me like roadkill”, mused Miriam Siegman, who has apparently taken to scavenging in dumpsters for food post-fraud; Burt Ross meanwhile unselfconsciously quoted Dante, and said afterwards: “I told the judge that when Bernard Madoff leaves prison, which means after his death, that he will then go down to the depths of hell where he’ll join those other people who are in the mouths of Satan”. Most informative.
Bernie’s wife Ruth Madoff, she of the extremely on-trend circular-rimmed glasses, also spoke up yesterday. She’s predictably a bit gutted about the whole thing: “Like everyone else, I feel betrayed and confused. The man who committed this horrible fraud is not the man whom I have known for all these years.” She’s giving up $80m in assets, including boats and two houses, and will be left with $2.5m cash. New York Daily News has a look inside the apartment she’s having to give up: “Madoff’s bedroom boasts of a burlwood chest topped with Chinese porcelains dating back to the late 1700s”. That Madoff’s bedroom, always showing off! Though as CBS notes, she might not be out of the woods yet – some of that $2.5m may still be open to claims by the Securities and Exchange Commission investigating the fraud.
So while Madoff goes back to his reading and keep-fit routine, the legal world is reeling from the sentencing. “What benefit did this guy get for pleading guilty?”, wonders lawyer Christopher Clark over at the WSJ. Others suggest the big sentence was because Madoff didn’t play ball in the plea-bargaining stage, shouldering all the responsibility himself. As the FBI has had to send their boys to Europe in an attempt to find out who else could be involved, such evasiveness from Madoff hasn’t gone down well. But seeing as the sentence he was pushing for was 12 years, he wasn’t going to particularly benefit from spilling the beans anyway.
It looks like the only ones to really benefit from yesterday were the enterprising folks hawking Madoff merchandise. “A man with statue of a caged bear and a name tag reading ‘Bernard Madoff’ hanging from its neck sat on a cart outside the courthouse”, according to the New York Times, while artists sketched pictures of Madoff to sell to passers-by – are they really going to be as awesome as these official courtroom sketches though?
Most exciting though was the NY Times spotting Michael Imperioli, of Christopher Moltisanti and getting-blasted-by-Joe-Pesci-in-Goodfellas fame, hanging around outside the courtroom “conducting research for a forthcoming project”! The Madoff miniseries starts here! Hopefully with guns!
Posted by Ben Beaumont-Thomas in Hot Money | June 30, 2009 11:10AM |
