I think it's a bit too much of a grand gesture to place that kind of a sentence on a single person (especially one his age already), and not enough to distribute the punishment to the other people who, undoubtedly are also at fault.
What does "Ponzi scheme" means? Is that some sort of pyramidal bank scheme? Here is says that he stole tens of billions of dollars from hundreds of investors. He ruined their lives. Although he will not live even to serve a 10th part of his sentence it still has a symbolic meaning of warning to others who may try to do a similar thing. This is not a first time that I hear that someone is sentenced to 2 or more life sentences in the US. In my state maximal penalty is 40 years, I don't think that anyone is sentenced to more.
The number is just symbolic. It's saying that he can never serve his sentence in full because his crime was so bad. Sometimes you might hear about serial killers receiving a sentence of hundreds of years.
and not enough to distribute the punishment to the other people who, undoubtedly are also at fault.
What is that supposed to mean? Madoff ran the whole thing by himself. He acted alone.
A Life Sentence would mean after 25 years, one can apply for parole. Even when someone is sentences to "Life without parole" they can still appeal to the government and receive parole. Making the sentence 150 years probably makes it much longer before he can apply for parole. (I'm not completely sure about that).
But most of all, like I said in an earlier post, the sentence is symbolic. Everyone knows he won't live for 150 more years. No one can live that long. The sentence is just saying "you committed a crime so horrible that you can't serve your sentence."
A ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment intended to entice investeors with abnormally high returns over a short period of time. The money that investors recieve in the return is often their own money or money from other investors of the scheme. These schemes tend to collapse on themselves once new investors stop coming in.
It would be like somebody telling you if you invest $1,000 with them they can get you a high rate of return over a short period of time (few months to a year). When it comes time to roll over your investment the person gives you...lets say $250 back which was your own money and kept the other $750 for themselves while asking for more money to invest to "guaruntee" a larger return.
As far as Madoff is concerned he got what he deserved. He took peoples money, large sums and in some cases their life savings from them and created a lavish lifestyle based off of that. He ruined people finacially. During the trial some of the victims who testified wept and others were shouting at the top of their lungs in anger at this man. 150 years sound just fine to me. Sure he may only be around for another 10-15 years but knowing that even if he manages to live to 100, he would still be in prison for another 121 years. Along with the torment of knowing that he'll die in prison for what he did cold and alone and far from the lifestyle he was living on off of other peoples money is peace of mind for the people he took advantage of and hopefully send a powerfull message to other potential frauds.
I think that some of the people who paid into the scam are partially at fault. At times, Madoff showed their "accounts" to be estimated at 64 BILLION or more. Who the hell buys into that?
I think that some of the people who paid into the scam are partially at fault. At times, Madoff showed their "accounts" to be estimated at 64 BILLION or more. Who the hell buys into that?
Bernie Madoff with the money, now Bernie Madoff with a life sentence. Rightfully deserved, unfortunately he won't live 10 years of it. It still surprises me how nobody murdered him before hand.
Madoff got exactly what he deserved. The scam he was running affected thousands of people. He made himself extremely wealthy stealing from other people. The only reason nobody murdered him was because once he was caught he was under house arrest and guarded to prevent just that sort of thing from happening. Most of his victims probably decided it would be better to let the justice system punish him rather the suffer the possible consequences of murdering him to satisfy their own vengence. Plus killing him wouldn't get them their money back which is what most of those people really want, and that's not going to happen since most of it is either spent or in the hands of the government (not to mention the big pile that the wife still has, that she gets to keep because she said that it was her personal savings).
I don't care what they call it, but as long as he's in jail for the rest of his life I'm happy. I hate when people are sentenced like 20 years, but get out after 2 thanks to the wonderful sentence.
if he dies in say...10 years, would the prison keep his body in the prison graveyard for 140 years before returning it to his desencants? just wondering becuase something like this happened, where a murderer murdered his family and died with 15 years on his sentence before parole, and the prison kept his body for 15 years before returning it to a public graveyard.
