Vegas Bob wrote:
The sentence has just come down in NY. The greedy bastard just got 150 years. He still hasn't given up any info as to where the billions of dollars are located. Now they go after his wife,brother and Ch*ldren who look like they are certainly involved.
Now if only Costa Rica could follow suit and move the case against Luis Milenes along as that bastard remains free on bullshit bail. This is not to be outdone by the Villalobos swindle which I believe was, prior to Madoff,the largest ponzi fraud in the history of the world.
Actually, VB, there have been a number of Ponzi Schemes larger the the $400M Villalobos Bros scheme (Mexican Timeshares $428M, Albanian Lottery $1B, Lou Pearlman's Trans Continental Savings Program ~$500M, Greater Ministries International ~$500, Scientologist Reed Slatkin $593M
source and let's not forget about the biggest Ponzi scheme of them all - Social Security).
As for his sentence, the man is 71 years old. What difference does it really make if he got 150 years or only serves 15? The fact is he was never going to get out of jail anyway and will most likely die there. They were trying to get him to cooperate with the investigation in order to help recover part of the stolen money. Clearly he didn't cooperate or he wouldn't have gotten the maximum sentence, but what did they really have to trade? Only making him serve 10-20 years of his short remaining lifetime if he even lasts that long? If what TW says is true than "ordering him to solitary confinement for the entire stay" might actually be a life-extending favor for him. With a judge sentencing him to the 150 year max, I doubt that "country club prison" is in his future, but even if it was there are probably some even there (who may have been victims themselves)who would do him in for the right price. How about not pursuing prosecution against his family members who you KNOW had to have been in on it or, at the very least, benefited from it and CONTINUE to benefit from it in exchange for help getting some of the money back? As Mark pointed out, the real crime here is not that Madoff "just" got 150 years, but that those friends and family that he channeled money to all those years get to keep it (or at least some of it). The real story will be how much they will be able to make those people pay or how much they'll get to keep.