NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Bernie Madoff, the financier who pleaded guilty to massively ripping off investors, has died in a federal prison.
As Alice Gainer reports from CBS2, she had long been ill with end-stage kidney disease and other chronic illnesses.
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Last year, Madoff’s lawyers filed court documents to try to get him out of jail during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the request was denied.
More than 15,000 claims were filed against Madoff. About 70% of the funds lost to investors have been returned.
Madoff was the brains behind the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. He died while serving his 150-year sentence in North Carolina.
Madoff, former chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange, ended up saving thousands of people, investments from universities, charities and celebrities.
“Forty years of savings and all my pension. I have nothing left: I have food stamps, ”said Miriam Siegman, Madoff’s investor.
“This betrayal is very difficult for me because he was a man we were friends with for 35 years and investors for 25,” said former Mets owner Fred Wilpon.
Before making her name on Wall Street, Madoff grew up in a Queens neighborhood, where she married her high school friend Ruth.
He started his investment business with several thousand dollars of savings and settled in the financial capital in the 1960s. For decades, their fund did not trade, allowing investors to change their accounts by removing new investors from their accounts. In 2008, the financial crisis caused investors to withdraw. He couldn’t keep up and told his family.
“He said I have a confession to make. I’ve been running a Ponzi scheme, ”his ex-wife Ruth Madoff said 60 minutes.
His children handed him over.
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In 2009 he pleaded guilty to fraud in securities and other charges. He said he felt “a lot of grief and shame.”
Madoff was so hated that he had to wear a bulletproof vest in court.
An administrator was appointed to recover funds, sometimes suing hedge funds and other large investors coming forward.
To date, more than $ 13 billion, approximately $ 17.5 billion, has been returned by investors to Madoff’s business. Their homes and yacht were auctioned off to help compensate the victims.
“Madoff’s assets not only went bankrupt, but there were cascading bankruptcies because he couldn’t pay people. Many investors went bankrupt, “said attorney Robert Wallner.
Wallner represented the administrator of the litigation of two large funds that invested with Madoff and went bankrupt.
“There are a lot of people who not only had to return money they took out, but they had to return money they never had,” Wallner said. “Think of all the victims he left behind, and frankly that’s what I thought, not his disappearance.”
Half a dozen Madoff associates were arrested. His son committed suicide on the second anniversary of his father’s arrest. His wife cut him off.
“A very sad episode in the history of our city,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday. “Many, many people felt hurt by their actions and it’s time that, hopefully, we turn the page and move forward.”
In 2019, Madoff’s lawyers had also asked former President Donald Trump for a reduction in his sentence. None was given.
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Madoff was 82 years old.