Jun 29 2009
Bernard Madoff - Bilked Many out of Millions
Imagine… that you had plenty of money to invest, and that there was an investment firm you had checked out. You look into their history and everything looks legit, you even know people that received payouts - They get annual statements showing their initial investments growing at a faster rate than across the board averages. This is how Bernard Madoff got away with bilking thousands of people who believed they were legitimately investing their money with his firm.
He got away with the largest every Ponzi scheme. News reports claim some investors had been with him since the 1990’s, until he ran out of necessary funding to fuel his scheme in December 2008. Somewhere thereafter, many who thought they had their life savings in the safest possible investment plan found out that they had not a penny left to their name. Imagine that. One day you are set, the next you are penniless and have to sell everything.
One could say this or that about what kind of a person he is, or state their perception of the type of crime this ass committed; but in the end, why? He obviously has something wrong with his mind; at least I hope so. I don’t want to know of the day when a ‘normal’ person could do this to innocent people that harmed him naught. In reference to why he did it, he didn’t have anything of note to say; he appears remorseless. He did say that the shame will torment him the rest of his life, but that is not remorse. That is wishing he hadn’t been caught.
On Friday in a 170 billion dollar judgment towards him, the government announced that they had seized all properties and assets owned by him and his wife. Monies recovered from these assets will be used to repay some or all losses. The Securities Investor Protection Corporation will additionally repay some victims up to $500,000. Investigators still tallying have so far found over 1,300 of his investors were cheated out of more than 13 billion dollars.
This is where I feel a so called ‘civilized’ justice system fails. This individual could never be made to feel the agony, embarrassment, loss, and humiliation that he caused these real people. It made me angry when I read that one investor he cleaned out was applying for food stamps, while he and his wife have how many homes totaling unknown millions!
In New York on Monday, Judge Denny Chin sentenced Madoff to the maximum term of 150 years of incarceration even though leniency had been requested due to his age and health condition… I am glad they went ahead with maximum charges - His victims didn’t get options and second chances!
I feel bad for those people he scammed also!! I know he stripped them of trust as well as money. He was malicious with his deeds and he straight out lied to some of those people to get them to invest with him. I agree that remorse is not what he is feeling - greed took him in the wrong direction but he had enablers along the way.
Sure he had enablers - Until this happened there was no clue as to how deeply one has to scrutinize those with who they invest their monies… This will change that basic trust concept forever.