Bernard Madoff, who was Sentenced to 150 Years, died in Jail

 

Bernard Madoff, a U.S. citizen who was sentenced to 150 years in prison for the biggest fraud in history, has died in prison.

According to the Bureau of Prisons, Bernard Madoff died today on 14 April 2021 at the age of 82.

According to the British news agency 'Reuters', Bernard Madoff had kidney failure and he was suffering from other diseases.

He was jailed in federal jail in Butter, North Carolina, in June 2009 after being sentenced to 150 years in prison for fraud worth 64 64.8 billion (Pakistani rupees 99 trillion).

Among the thousands affected by Bernard Madoff's fraud are charities, pension funds and hedge funds.

Those he betrayed included actors Kevin Bacon, Kaira Segovic and John Malkovich, as well as a charity affiliated with Baseball Hall of Fame's Sandy Kofax and director Steven Spielberg.

The owners of the New York Mets, who were longtime clients of Bernard Madoff, fought for years for a good baseball team due to fraudulent losses.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, whose foundation lost 15.2 million dollars, said in 2009: "We thought of him as a god, we trusted everything in his hands.

However, some people lost everything, many of them victims from the Jewish community where Bernard Madoff was known as a philanthropist.

His crimes were revealed to authorities in 2008 by his two sons who were not part of the scheme.

The fraud also exposed flaws in the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which ignored or failed to detect the fraud.

According to ABC News, Bernard Madoff told his lawyers in an interview during his incarceration that "I met with the SEC several times and I thought they reached out to me."

Bernard Madoff was one of the most influential money-makers in Nasdaq and once became its non-executive chairman.

His brokerage firm was located in the Midtown Manhattan Tower, known as the Lipstick Building.

His employees said they considered themselves part of Bernard Madoff's family and were unaware of the ongoing fraud on the second floor. Only a few people he trusted knew about the fraud.

Bernard Madoff said he started the fraud in 1990, but prosecutors and several victims said it started earlier.

Investors were lured into rapid, double-digit annual returns that others could not afford.

The fraud prompted Bernard Madoff and his wife to acquire a number of comforts, including a Manhattan penthouse, a French villa, expensive cars and a combined fortune of 82 825 million.

However, no one close to him was present in the courtroom when US District Judge Danny Chen sentenced him. And no letter from his family, friends or supporters was sent to ease his sentence, citing his good deeds.

"When I started this problem, this crime, I thought I would get out of it," Bernard Madoff told the court. But it became impossible, the more I tried, the more I pushed myself into such a deep pit.

Bernard Madoff also addressed the victims in the courtroom, saying, "I'm sorry, I know this won't help you."

When and how did Bernard Madoff commit fraud?

Bernard Lawrence Madoff was born in New York on April 29, 1938, and was raised in the home of European immigrants who ran a brokerage firm outside their home.

He graduated from Hofstra University in 1960 and moved to Brooklyn Law School shortly thereafter.

Bernard Madoff told New York Magazine in 2011 that he started Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities the same year using 500 dollars of his savings. He said that he borrowed office space from her father-in-law.

He started selling small, penny stocks in the market and in the early 1970's he became one of the 5 original broker dealers of Nasdaq Trading System.

Bernard Madoff supported greater market competition even as the New York Stock Exchange dominated trade and advanced electronic trading.

He had liked cleanliness very much, his offices were decorated with black and gray things. Employees had small paperwork on their desks and matched wedding rings with their watches.

He did well in the 1980s and 1990s and his profits were high. However, as market standards changed, his profits declined, but Bernard's brokerage operations financed his fraud.

Clients were told they would make money through the 'Split-Strike Conversion Strategy'. In which he will buy more stocks on the Standard & Poor's 100 Index and reduce risks by buying and selling on the index.

Bernard Madoff was successful and the customers looked happy, but nothing was real.