Bernie Madoff, 150 years.

[Shrinn]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/6502635.html

A sample link, but it's everywhere.

Bernard Madoff has been sentenced to the maximum 150 years in prison for his multibillion-dollar fraud scheme. U.S. District Judge Denny Chin handed down the sentence in New York on Monday.

He'll obviously die in there. Is this a fair punishment for such a large scam?

[Suave Peanut]

So he wasn't sentenced to be hung by his balls after all, eh?

[Narradisall]

I hopeheis also having all his assets stripped to pay back his debtors. I imagine they will be as standard. Considering he basically stole billions bot just from companies but the people investing or saving on them, yea, I'm ok with him rotting in there.

[Ox]

For comparison, some sample recent sentences in federal court in the Southern District of New York (which includes Manhattan):
72 months for prison guard who kicked, punched, and stomped a prisoner's head into a cement floor. (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/June09/cotesentencingpr.pdf) The prisoner was in a persistent vegetative state for 14 months, then died. The prisoner was an immigrant from Yugoslavia who was awaiting trial for a trespass charge and hadn't been able to meet his $250 bail.

30 months for a school bus inspector for extortion and bribery (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/June09/ortizgeorgesentencingpr.pdf).

188 months for a man who distributed child pornography to FBI agents posing as minors in an effort to seduce them (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/June09/liedkesentencingpr.pdf).

17 months for a man who was employed by Hizballah to transmit their propaganda in America (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/June09/elahwalsalehsentencingpr.pdf).

[Cactaur]

Bah. Good behavior and 'poor health' and he's out in 7-10? Plus the prison he goes to is probably more like a country club.

[alienmastermind]

For comparison, some sample recent sentences in federal court in the Southern District of New York (which includes Manhattan):
72 months for prison guard who kicked, punched, and stomped a prisoner's head into a cement floor. (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/June09/cotesentencingpr.pdf) The prisoner was in a persistent vegetative state for 14 months, then died. The prisoner was an immigrant from Yugoslavia who was awaiting trial for a trespass charge and hadn't been able to meet his $250 bail.

30 months for a school bus inspector for extortion and bribery (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/June09/ortizgeorgesentencingpr.pdf).

188 months for a man who distributed child pornography to FBI agents posing as minors in an effort to seduce them (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/June09/liedkesentencingpr.pdf).

17 months for a man who was employed by Hizballah to transmit their propaganda in America (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/June09/elahwalsalehsentencingpr.pdf).

But in those cases, do the judges say 'Well, this affects a hypothetical number of potential victims' vs. 'This guy literally stole from hundreds or thousands of victims'?

I'd say that would be the reasoning, but I am not a lawyer. And damn 150 years is pretty steep. It's not like he pirated songs offa the internet or something.

[Crowe]

Rapists, killers, child molester, they should be getting 150 years. Right along with this arsehole.

[Doogie2K]

Rapists, killers, child molester, they should be getting 150 years.

QFT

Too damned short.

[OUX]

I'm sorry, he bilked money out of greedy assholes that were too stupid to research their own investments. He was very good at it. He defiantly belongs in jail, but to compare him to society's monsters is a bit much. And Ox, that prison guard sentencing just makes me sick to my stomach.

[Crowe]

Nothing makes me angrier than hearing a filthy rapist getting a tiny sentence while the victim suffers well after the sentence has been served. Not looking to derail the thread though.

I'm sure a lot of people are going to suffer from this guys actions.

[Generation ABXY]

Nothing makes me angrier than hearing a filthy rapist getting a tiny sentence while the victim suffers well after the sentence has been served.

In that case, the supposed 20 years this guy (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gKSagl4rOYk0ihNZCpK_6MsxOaHQD992G8HG0) (who apparently did much worse than just what is listed there) is facing may actually turn your stomach... :(

[Ox]

But in those cases, do the judges say 'Well, this affects a hypothetical number of potential victims' vs. 'This guy literally stole from hundreds or thousands of victims'?
That's a much more interesting question than you may realize. See, there are four purposes for criminal punishment: retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation.

The 'potential victims' thing goes to incapacitation: we're locking you up so you can't do it again. Even if Madoff got probation, it's highly unlikely any investor would ever trust him again, so there's very little argument for a long sentence on the basis of incapacitation. But the large number of actual victims weighs heavily on the retribution factor. By contrast, most of the cases I cited have relatively stronger incapacitation arguments.

I don't particularly think the 150-year sentence is based on retribution, though. I think it's based on general deterrence (i.e., scaring the crap out of other potential scam artists) and a desire to ensure the sentence survives appeal (even if some of the individual sentences are knocked out, the remaining ones guarantee Madoff will die behind bars).

As for time off for good behavior: that's used to bribe prisoners into being peaceful behind bars. For prisoners who are in minimum-security and who pose little risk of shivving their guards, like Madoff, it usually isn't much of a factor.

[carnage11]

For comparison, some sample recent sentences in federal court in the Southern District of New York (which includes Manhattan):
72 months for prison guard who kicked, punched, and stomped a prisoner's head into a cement floor. (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/June09/cotesentencingpr.pdf) The prisoner was in a persistent vegetative state for 14 months, then died. The prisoner was an immigrant from Yugoslavia who was awaiting trial for a trespass charge and hadn't been able to meet his $250 bail.


That's fucking disgusting. It pisses me off to no end, because I've seen so many cases where cops get off with a slap on the wrist for doing seriously heinous crimes. Now, I understand that sometimes cops have to put up with a lot and are risking their lives and blah, blah....but murdering someone (criminal or not) and getting 3 years? It would be considered second degree murder? 3 years? Wow.


As far as Ol' Bernard.....well 150 years is just stupid. Basically 2 life sentences. I always found it funny when they sentence someone with multiple life sentences.

"For murdering 12 people in cold blood you will spend no less than 960 years in prison. See you next millennium mother fucker!" :p

[Ox]

That's fucking disgusting. It pisses me off to no end, because I've seen so many cases where cops get off with a slap on the wrist for doing seriously heinous crimes. Now, I understand that sometimes cops have to put up with a lot and are risking their lives and blah, blah....but murdering someone (criminal or not) and getting 3 years? It would be considered second degree murder? 3 years? Wow.
First, 72 months is six years, not three. Second, it's not murder because the victim survives for more than a year and a day after the attack. Third, six years is a reasonably stiff sentence for that sort of thing if committed by a civilian.

[Telefrog]

Bah. Good behavior and 'poor health' and he's out in 7-10? Plus the prison he goes to is probably more like a country club.

Well, he won't be going to San Quentin, but he likely won't get minimum security prison either. Most speculation surrounds a few medium security institutions.

Alan Ellis, author of the Federal Prison Guidebook has made an educated guess that Bernie Madoff will go to one of four Northeast Division facilities: Federal Correctional Institute Otisville in upstate New York; Federal Correctional Institute Ray Brook, also in upstate New York; Federal Correctional Institute Fairton in New Jersey; or Federal Correctional Institute McKean in Pennsylvania. Alan Ellis thinks that the Federal Correctional Institute Otisville is the strongest candidate.

[carnage11]

First, 72 months is six years, not three. Second, it's not murder because the victim survives for more than a year and a day after the attack. Third, six years is a reasonably stiff sentence for that sort of thing if committed by a civilian.

heh, yeah, I was thinking 72 hours = 3 days. duh.

As for it not being murder, I personally would consider it murder considering the actions of the guard caused the death of the man. I hardly call being in a vegetative state 'surviving'. However, that's just my opinion. Of course the law and my opinion are generally opposing.

[Ox]

If being in a vegetative state counted as being dead, then it would be okay for me to wander around hospitals disconnecting coma patients for kicks.

[Doogie2K]

If being in a vegetative state counted as being dead, then it would be okay for me to wander around hospitals disconnecting coma patients for kicks.

Well, not as a blanket rule, but beating someone into a persistent vegetative state seems like it should probably count as murder. Even if the heart's still beating, the mind is gone, and in my opinion, anyway, the essence of the person is then gone. At that point, they're meat.

[Ink Asylum]

If it's not murder because the victim was a vegetable for over a year before they died, what's the cutoff? How long after the initial attack does a victim have to be at death's door before it can't be called murder anymore? A day? A week? A month?

[Narradisall]

I'm sure I remember reading on this Site Ox stating (as well as others of you) that white collar crime was a joke an poorly punished.

So they slap this guy with 150 years and now your saying murders, rapists etc get light sentences? Make up your minds damnit!

Yeah, Yeah, I know... they should both be giving a decent amount of Justice.

As is said in the other thread, and having looked at the issue a bit more, it does looke like all the big companies will get some of their money back while those people investing their life savings will get back diddly. It sucks.

[Ox]

If it's not murder because the victim was a vegetable for over a year before they died, what's the cutoff? How long after the initial attack does a victim have to be at death's door before it can't be called murder anymore? A day? A week? A month?
Under common law, the death must follow within a year and a day (i.e., 366 days) after the attack to qualify as murder. Some jurisdictions have modified this rule by statute.

EDIT: A good example of this is my state of Pennsylvania, where a man was recently charged with murdering a police officer... because the police officer recently died of an infection resulting from a bullet wound the defendant inflicted on him back in 1966.

I'm sure I remember reading on this Site Ox stating (as well as others of you) that white collar crime was a joke an poorly punished.
I'm pretty sure I've never said that, and indeed I said just the opposite: that it seems to be punished much more severely than a coldblooded calculation of harm and evil would recommend, at least in comparison to violent crime. But I am open to the possibility that I've contradicted myself in the past.

[Narradisall]

I'm pretty sure I've never said that, and indeed I said just the opposite: that it seems to be punished much more severely than a coldblooded calculation of harm and evil would recommend, at least in comparison to violent crime. But I am open to the possibility that I've contradicted myself in the past.

Do you have some sort of sensor that goes off in your head when someone openly counters you in an internet forum? Just curious, cause I'd LOVE one of them.

I may have had it wrong. I can't remember what thread it was but it was at least a month or two back, and well, at 1300 posts I'd much rather just secede (I can't think of the proper word, its late) the point than trek through all those posts.

[Narradisall]

Yeah, screw it. After 7 pages of search, all I concluded is Ox uses the word 'crime' too much. From now on, I decree you shall use the word 'fluffykiddums' instead.

[BlackPete]

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

[carnage11]

If being in a vegetative state counted as being dead, then it would be okay for me to wander around hospitals disconnecting coma patients for kicks.

I wasn't saying being in a vegetative state counts as being dead. I'm saying, that what the man did, caused the person to die. Sure he took over a year to die, but the consequences of being beaten to a pulp caused him to be in a coma, which then lead to his death.


Either way, I still feel that 150 years is a little ridiculous. 2 life sentences? Are we dealing with cats? The dude's already in his 70s. I guess it is possible he could live to be 220 years old.

[Narradisall]

Either way, I still feel that 150 years is a little ridiculous. 2 life sentences? Are we dealing with cats? The dude's already in his 70s. I guess it is possible he could live to be 220 years old.

He used all his billions to replace his organs with golden mechanical substitutes, his skin? Diamond. His eyes? Sapphires. Liquid silver runs through his veins and not one inch of him is biological anymore.

He'll live until the stars themselves die.

[Ox]

I wasn't saying being in a vegetative state counts as being dead. I'm saying, that what the man did, caused the person to die. Sure he took over a year to die, but the consequences of being beaten to a pulp caused him to be in a coma, which then lead to his death.
Yes, but we're talking about a statute of limitations here. There are two traditional arguments in favor of a statute of limitations:
1. The accused has the right to the opportunity to mount a defense to the allegations. As time passes, witnesses die, move away, forget, or otherwise become unavailable. Trying a man for a crime he committed a long time ago may result in an innocent man being convicted, simply because his defense has turned to dust in the intervening time.

2. Causation becomes a tricky issue as time goes on, especially for something like "what caused the victim's death." Did the victim die as a direct result of the beating, or was there an intervening cause such as an infection or poor medical care? Besides, sometimes people just die. Consider the Philadelphia cop I referred to earlier: perhaps his gunshot wound was related to his eventual death, but he lived forty more years with that and eventually succumbed to infection as an old man. Are you comfortable with saying that the proximate cause of his death was the gunshot wound? Should the shooter be held responsible for murder when his victim went on to lead a reasonably long life?

I'm not saying I agree with the common-law rule, especially since Pennsylvania does not have a statute of limitations for murder. But we do have a statute of limitations for other crimes, and while I may not always agree with where the line is drawn, I do understand the argument for why, at least sometimes, there needs to be a cutoff. Otherwise, every kindergarten bully could theoretically be held responsible for his victim's death decades later.

Either way, I still feel that 150 years is a little ridiculous. 2 life sentences? Are we dealing with cats? The dude's already in his 70s. I guess it is possible he could live to be 220 years old.
Like I said before, it has to do with the appellate process. If some charges are thrown out on appeal, he will still have a life sentence.

[carnage11]

Yeah, I can understand that, and to a point I agree. I guess I would leave it up to a doctor or an autopsy report to the actual cause of death. You could say, if the man was not beaten into a coma, would he have died a year later? Yes, then the guard is innocent of murder. No, then the beating was the cause of death and the guard should be punished accordingly. That's just how I see it. However, I see your point, and there does need to be a certain cut off point. I would say the guard was lucky that the guy waited exactly long enough to die.

[Ox]

You could say, if the man was not beaten into a coma, would he have died a year later? Yes, then the guard is innocent of murder. No, then the beating was the cause of death and the guard should be punished accordingly. That's just how I see it.
That's called "but-for" causation, in the sense that you're asking: "but for the beating, would he have died?" That is the standard the law uses for whether there is causation.

But there's another aspect to causation. Remember the old proverb, "For Want of a Nail (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Want_of_a_Nail)"?

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
All true, but that doesn't mean the negligent farrier should be held responsible for the loss of a kingdom. There's also a concept known as "proximate causation," where, even if "but for" the bad act the bad consequence never would have happened, there will be no liability if there's enough conceptual distance between the bad act and the bad consequence. Even if you can clearly trace the line of "but for" causation.

[cppcrusader]

I would have rather seen him sentenced to something like 30 years hard labor. Do they still do that? Just 150 years for a 71 year old man almost seems like a waste. He already got to live his life of being filthy rich and now all we're effectively doing is taking away spending his twilight years in the lap of luxury and sticking him in a cell till he dies.

It just doesn't seem like much of a punishment to me. Now if we make him spend those years in jail breaking rocks with other rocks, then we're getting somewhere. I guess his sentence does set a good standard to go by when going after the rest of his family that was involved though.

[RandoM51]

Multiple life sentences will make sense once we find out he is a super villain that cannot be killed by ordinary means.

[BlackPete]

The stupid is strong with this one: (http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/news/0906/gallery.madoff_victims/5.html)

Foy, age 57, a semi-retired software engineer, received statements from Madoff's firm saying that his investment had grown since 1993. In a letter to CNNMoney.com, he blames not only Madoff for stealing his money, but the SIPC for covering only the money he invested, not the larger amount that it was supposedly worth before the Ponzi scheme ended in December.

"My sense of betrayal by Bernard Madoff has been especially exaggerated by the fact that SIPC is currently violating its duties under [Securities Investor Protection Act] law by dismissing my last Madoff account statement (dated November 2008) and ignoring all the interest earned in my IRA account over the last 16 years.

Warning: Clicking on the link will show you a picture of Foy.

[carnage11]

I would have rather seen him sentenced to something like 30 years hard labor. Do they still do that? Just 150 years for a 71 year old man almost seems like a waste. He already got to live his life of being filthy rich and now all we're effectively doing is taking away spending his twilight years in the lap of luxury and sticking him in a cell till he dies.

It just doesn't seem like much of a punishment to me. Now if we make him spend those years in jail breaking rocks with other rocks, then we're getting somewhere. I guess his sentence does set a good standard to go by when going after the rest of his family that was involved though.

What's worse, is the cell he gets will probably be some low level, minimum security joint, where he gets to watch TV and play video games all day.

The best punishment, IMO, would be to take away all of his fortunes, down to the last fucking penny, and then let him live the rest of his life as a homeless person.

[OUX]

What's worse, is the cell he gets will probably be some low level, minimum security joint, where he gets to watch TV and play video games all day.

The best punishment, IMO, would be to take away all of his fortunes, down to the last fucking penny, and then let him live the rest of his life as a homeless person.

Yeah that would last about a day and then he would be making more money than you running another scam. The man is smart.