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Bernard Madoff's Lawyers Ask for 12 Year Sentence

By Jeralyn, Section Crime in the News
Posted on Tue Jun 23, 2009 at 10:06:24 AM EST
Tags: Bernie Madoff (all tags)
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Bernie Madoff is scheduled to be sentenced June 29. His lawyers are requesting a sentence of less than life in prison for the 71 year old financier. They request 12 years, or a 15 to 20 year sentence. They say he has a life expectancy of about 13 years.

You can read his lawyers' letter here (pdf.) In the letter, they attach life expectancy information and data on the sentences in other fraud cases.

The Government has filed 140 pages of e-mails and letters from victims.

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    Bernard Madoff's Lawyers Ask for 12 Year Sentence | 6 comments (6 topical)

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    Sounds Okay (none / 0) (#1)
    by Socraticsilence on Tue Jun 23, 2009 at 11:00:24 AM EST
    as long as it is accompanied by complete asset forfieture- i.e. the Penthouse, the Jewelry, the Art, the wife's "funds" etc. it seems fair that they have say 100,000 in assets post-confiscatiion and redistribution, but anything more seems like he's asking to go to prison and give his wife the remainder of what he stole.

    Whatever he pays (none / 0) (#6)
    by MrConservative on Wed Jun 24, 2009 at 06:32:17 AM EST
    It's not going to make up for what he stole.  12 years for this kind of fraud still seems lenient - and indeed, I think his lawyers are just asking for the minimum possible as a sort of formality that they know they'll never get.  I think around fifty is probably more reasonable if the judge has a heart, although even that is suspect, and anyway, as I've said before, he's never getting out of prison because of his age.

    Parent
    12 years in stocks? (none / 0) (#2)
    by tokin librul on Tue Jun 23, 2009 at 11:06:27 AM EST
    No not that kind.

    As in "Pillories."

    I agree with SS. Fruit of the poison tree and all that. All his "assets" are tainted and, money being fungible, there's no way to know ehich (if any) of the assets were purchased with "clean" money (if there ever was ANY), every dime, every dog-hair, every crumb that bernie Madoff with ought to be expropriateed...

    Was there any "clean" money (none / 0) (#3)
    by Inspector Gadget on Tue Jun 23, 2009 at 01:06:37 PM EST
    in his life? Seems to me, even if there was, that needs to be relinquished as restitution.

    Parent
    Bernard Madoff's Lawyers Ask for 12 Year Sentence (none / 0) (#4)
    by Cynmark24 on Tue Jun 23, 2009 at 06:46:36 PM EST
    You just have to love Ira Sorkin, former NY regional director of the SEC from 1984 - 1986 who allegedly kept Madoff out of trouble for nearly two decades.  It really takes quite a character to call the Madoff victims, mostly in their 60's thru their 90's a group of people who have expressed "mob vengeance" against him.  Mr. Sorkin should thank the "civilized" legal system for not giving Madoff what he really deserves for destroying so many lives and not caring in the least. To me, nothing less than either solitary confinement (to give him some time to think about what he did) or hard labor (to feel some of the pain thousands of people have felt) would be appropriate for him, with no chance of ever having parole.

    Its time for the Madoff investors to move on to the issues of today. Madoff will soon be irrelevant and the SEC and SIPC have not learned a thing.  I can just imagine how the investors in Stanford (the latest Ponzi type scheme to emerge when they heard about Madoff on 12/11.  "Wow, I'm sure glad we are in Stanford and not Madoff. Can you imagine if it happened  to us?"  I can imagine that if the SEC doesn't clean up its act or SIPC doesn't pay the investors claims according to the law that has existed for 39 years, that someone, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people, will be the next victim of a financial scandal. It's time to stop thinking it can't happen to you, because those numbers of scammed investors are increasing daily.

    Yeah, that's going to happen (none / 0) (#5)
    by MrConservative on Tue Jun 23, 2009 at 11:08:27 PM EST
    May as well shoot for the moon, eh?  As it is, there is pretty much no imaginable way that Madoff is ever getting out of prison.

    Bernard Madoff's Lawyers Ask for 12 Year Sentence | 6 comments (6 topical)

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