Madoff with the Money Read Online Free PDF Page B

watches, diamond brooches, diamond and jade necklaces, and jewelry fit for royalty or a rapper. Later confiscated by the prosecutors, the gifts had been sent by Bernie after he had pledged to the SEC that he wouldn’t dispose of any assets. His lawyers claimed it was all one big mistake, and the judge declined to revoke bail and send him to jail.
    Then came an overwhelming shocker. With as much as an estimated $65 billion missing, shell-shocked Madoff investors who now had no idea what had been done with their money learned that the stocks and Treasury bills listed in such detail on their account statements had never actually been traded—and Bernie’s incredible deception had been going on for at least 13 years. The bombshell was dropped in late February 2009 by Irving Picard. The New York Times observed that the revelation “demolishes the theory that Mr. Madoff was an honest man driven into fraud by the relentless market strain of recent years.”
    Speculation that there would be a federal grand jury investigation, more admissions of guilt, the naming of co-conspirators, and especially a plea bargain deal in exchange for naming names ended on March 12, 2009, just three months after Bernie’s arrest, when he pleaded guilty in open court to a cornucopia of felony charges—securities fraud, investment adviser fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, international money laundering to promote specified unlawful activity, international money laundering to conceal and disguise the proceeds of specified unlawful activity, making false statements, perjury, making a false filing with the SEC, and theft from an employee benefit plan.
    Wearing a $7,000 custom-tailored Savile Row suit—under which was a bulletproof vest to protect him from furious investors—Bernie pleaded guilty to the biggest swindle in history. As he stood before Manhattan Federal Judge Denny Chin, he stated in a low voice:
    I am so deeply sorry and ashamed. As I engaged in my fraud, I knew what I was doing was wrong, indeed criminal. . . . I am painfully aware that I have deeply hurt many people.
    To the best of my recollection, my fraud began in the early 1990s.
    He further admitted that he “never invested” the money entrusted to him by thousands of investors. “Instead, those funds were deposited in a bank account at Chase Manhattan Bank. When clients wished to receive the profits they believed they had earned with me or to redeem their principal, I used the money in the Chase Manhattan bank account that belonged to them or other clients.”
    He said he believed his classic, but monstrous, Ponzi operation “would end shortly, and I would be able to extricate myself and my clients from the scheme. However, this proved impossible, and as the years went by I realized that my arrest and this day would inevitably come.”
    But perhaps the most shocking statement of all was his claim that he had acted alone, that he had pulled one of the biggest frauds of all time just by himself.
    The judge immediately ordered that Bernie be locked in the Metropolitan Correctional Center near the courthouse to await formal sentencing. Rather than his spectacular penthouse, he would now live in an eight-by-eight-foot maximum security cell, as Prisoner No. 61727-054.
    All told, he faced a maximum sentence of a century and a half in prison—at the age of 70.
    Bernie Madoff, who used to boast that he was “the most powerful man on Wall Street,” was destined to die behind bars.
    Outside the courthouse, victims of his scheme cheered as he was driven off to his new home under tight security.
    â€œBernie Madoff in Slammer at Last,” screamed a headline in the New York Daily News.
    His first full day in jail was Friday the 13th of March.
    In a lead editorial that day, the Wall Street Journal observed: “In a world that seems able to argue about any subject, the Madoff saga isn’t open to argument. . .