KONGLOMERAT HITAM yg TIDAK MAU bayar hutang BLBI harus dipenjara 150 tahun atau DIHUKUM MATI spt Madoff

Madoff sentenced to 150 years

Federal judge gives maximum sentence to Ponzi mastermind following his apology and victims' request for life sentence.

By Aaron Smith, CNNMoney.com staff writer

Last Updated: June 30, 2009: 6:12 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A federal judge sentenced Bernard Madoff, the convicted mastermind of the largest and most sweeping Ponzi scheme ever, to the maximum sentence of 150 years in federal court Monday.

Judge Denny Chin of U.S. District Court in New York announced the sentence just moments after Madoff apologized to his victims.

Chin, who called Madoff's crimes "extraordinarily evil," said the maximum sentence was important for deterrence, and also for the victims, many of whom erupted into applause after the judge announced the sentence. Many hugged and some of them broke down in tears.

"The sentence imposed today recognizes the significance of Bernard Madoff's crimes," Lev Dassin, acting U.S. attorney, said in a written statement.

The 150-year sentence is the maximum that federal prosecutors in New York requested, based on the number of Madoff's victims, the amount of money he stole and the extent of the damage he caused. Judge Chin said that the Federal Department of Probation had recommended a 50-year sentence.

Shortly before receiving his sentence, Madoff offered an apology, which he delivered facing Judge Chin.

"I live in a tormented state for all the pain and suffering I created," he said. "I left a legacy of shame. It is something I will live with for the rest of my life."

Madoff said he was not asking for forgiveness and not offering any excuses for his behavior. "How can you excuse betraying thousands of investors?" he asked. "How can you excuse deceiving hundreds of employees? How can you excuse lying to and deceiving your wife who still stands by you?"

Madoff then said, "I apologize to my victims. I will turn and face you." Addressing the victims in the courtroom directly, he offered, "I am sorry. I know it will not help you."

Victims had urged the judge to dole out the stiffest punishment possible. "We implore you to give the maximum sentence at a maximum prison for this deplorable low life," said one of the victims in court before Madoff spoke. "This is a violent crime without a tangible weapon."

Many of Madoff's investors were wiped out financially by the scam and sent letters to Judge Chin requesting he spend the rest of his life behind bars. Nine of the letter-writers spoke in court Monday.

Speaking on behalf of his wife and looking at Madoff, the same victim said, "I have a marriage made in heaven. You have [a] marriage made in hell, and that's where you'll return. May God spare you no mercy."

Through her attorney, Madoff's wife Ruth released a statement regarding her husband, "who stunned us all with his confession and is responsible for this terrible situation in which so many now find themselves."

"I am embarrassed and ashamed," she said, in the prepared statement. "Like everyone else, I feel betrayed and confused. The man who committed this horrible fraud is not the man whom I have known for all these years."

Madoff, who was stripped of his property in a legal action Friday, confessed on March 12 to running a massive Ponzi scheme. He pleaded guilty to 11 criminal counts, including fraud, money laundering, perjury, false filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other crimes.

Lawyer Ira Lee Sorkin, who represents Madoff, asked for a 12-year sentence. In a letter to the judge, Sorkin explained that his 71-year-old client "has an approximate life expectancy of 13 years" and isn't likely to outlive the requested sentence by more than a year.

Madoff orchestrated the scam by masquerading his investment firm as a legitimate business. But the business became a front for a Ponzi scheme, in which the scammer uses fresh money from unsuspecting investors to make payments to more mature investors, creating the false appearance of legitimate returns.

Madoff sent statements to victims claiming that their investments had grown several times over, but in actuality he had stolen, not invested, their money. Investigators believe that he had been running his scam since at least the 1980s, bilking thousands of investors until he finally ran out of money in December 2008.

In a $170 billion legal judgment against Madoff Friday, the government announced it had seized all of his property in a deal that also forces his wife to give up homes and property worth millions. The value of all the assets will eventually be used to compensate -- or partially compensate -- victims, based on how much they invested in Madoff's firm.

The Securities Investor Protection Corporation, an organization that shields investors in brokerage firms, will also pay up to $500,000 for any eligible claimant who lost money to Madoff, based on how much they put in.

Thus far, federal investigators have identified 1,341 investors in Madoff's firm, who have losses exceeding $13 billion. They're still tallying the damage. Victims have until July 2 to file a claim with U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York.

Acting U.S. attorney Dassin said the investigation was continuing.

"We are committed to bringing additional charges against anyone else who bears criminal responsibility," said Dassin, in a written statement. "At the same time, we are focused on tracing, restraining and liquidating assets to maximize recoveries for the victims."

Since March, Madoff has been incarcerated in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan, a holding facility for convicts awaiting sentencing. He will probably be transferred to amedium-security federal prison, according to prison consultants.

Alan Ellis, attorney and author of the "Federal Prison Guidebook," believes that Madoff will probably get sent to Federal Correctional Institute Otisville or FCI Ray Brook, both in upstate New York, FCI Fairton in New Jersey or FCI McKean in Pennsylvania.

--CNN's Allan Chernoff, Sara Lane, David Brandt, and Brian Vitagliano contributed to this report

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Son of Madoff's accountant kills himself in Ohio

Son of accountant for disgraced financier Bernard Madoff dies in Ohio; authorities say suicide

By Lisa Cornwell, Associated Press | Associated Press – Sun, Nov 18, 2012

The son of Bernard Madoff's longtime accountant, who himself pleaded guilty to securities fraud in the scandal centered on the disgraced financier, has committed suicide in central Ohio, authorities said.

Jeremy Friehling, 23, was found dead at his apartment of a self-inflicted gunshot wound Thursday in Columbus, where he was a second-year student at Ohio State's medical school, police there said.

There was no indication that the Madoff investment scandal had anything to do with the suicide, Franklin County Coroner Jan Gorniak said. She said Friehling left a note that just said that he was sorry.

Police detective Jay Fulton confirmed Sunday that Friehling left a note but would not give details about its contents.

The Friehling family declined to comment and "asks that their privacy be respected at this difficult time," Andrew Lankler, an attorney for Friehling's father, said Sunday.

Bernard Madoff was arrested in 2008 and later admitted that his investment business was a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. He was sentenced to 150 years in prison. Madoff's son, Mark Madoff, committed suicide in December 2010, hanging himself in his New York City apartment.

Friehling's father, David, of New City, N.Y., pleaded guilty in 2009 to securities fraud charges. Madoff's

accountant for nearly two decades, he quickly came under scrutiny after the financier's spectacular scam came to light. Federal prosecutors said he turned a blind eye to Madoff's cooked books.

David Friehling said he failed to do his job to verify Madoff's financial records but insisted that he didn't know Madoff was ripping off investors. He noted that he had put his own family's savings, including college funds for his three children, into Madoff's investment business.

"In what was the biggest mistake of my life, I put my trust with Bernard Madoff," Friehling told a judge.

Friehling has yet to be sentenced, as he is continuing to work with prosecutors. He pleaded guilty to charges that carry a potential prison term of up to 114 years in prison, though substantial cooperation can result in significant leniency. He also agreed to forfeit $3.1 million, which represents what he was paid by Madoff for his accounting and tax services, along with what his family withdrew from their Madoff accounts.

Jeremy Friehling was "a friend to many and a brilliant student who gave selflessly of his time to tutor other students," said a statement from the dean of the Ohio State medical school, Charles Lockwood. He also said Friehling had great promise as a future physician

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Mark Madoff's Agony

For the two years since he turned his father Bernie Madoff in to authorities, the pressure on Mark has been relentless and increasing. Allan Dodds Frank on what drove him to suicide.

Until Bernard Madoff’s giant Ponzi scheme collapsed, his family seemingly had no worries in the world. Now, on the second anniversary of his father’s arrest, Bernard Madoff’s older son, Mark, killed himself, police say.

Mark took his life after apparently exchanging disconsolate emails with his second wife Stephanie who was in Florida with their daughter. He hanged himself— NBC News says with a black dog leash—in their fourth floor apartment on Mercer Street in the Soho section of Manhattan as the couple’s young son slept. According to news reports, his father-in-law found the body and called police shortly before 7:30 a.m. Saturday, two years to the day Bernard Madoff was charged with the biggest Ponzi scheme ever.

Financier Bernard Madoff with his wife Ruth Madoff and son Mark Madoff during November 2001 in Long Island, NY. Mark Madoff, son of convicted investment fraudster Bernard Madoff, has been found hanged in New York in an apparent suicide. (Photo by GI/BM/

In mid-October, 2009, Mark Madoff had disappeared for a night, later telling his wife that he was “stressed out” and had checked into the Soho Grand Hotel. She became so stressed out herself that she successfully petitioned a New York judge early this year to change the last name Madoff to Morgan for her and the couple’s children, Audrey and Nicholas.

For 46-year-old Mark Madoff, maintaining a posture of innocence about his father’s Ponzi scheme has been unbearable ever since he and his brother Andrew turned their father in to authorities. The brothers then claimed that act proved they had nothing to do with the fraud and, on the instruction of their lawyer, they reportedly have never again talked to their father or their mother Ruth. One source familiar with the case says their lawyer was worried: “Mommy and Daddy were setting the sons up to commit felonies (by hiding money).”

Still, the Madoff brothers and Bernie’s brother Peter have faced ever-increasing pressure from criminal prosecutors, the bankruptcy trustee and angry investors. Ruth Madoff has been out of public sight and Bernard Madoff is serving a 150-year-sentence at the federal prison in Butner, N.C.

The final tipping point for Mark may have been lawsuits filed recently by bankruptcy trustee Irving Picard, including one in Great Britain that claims the Madoff brothers shared responsibility for a series of phony transactions between New York and London that funneled millions to Madoff family accounts.

That case is sealed so far, but in a press release, the trustee’s legal team suggested the case has turned up new evidence of criminal behavior by the Madoff brothers.

Talking about the “money flow” between Madoff offices, John W. Moscow of Baker & Hostetler said: “The London company’s purpose included acting as a cover to conceal the true nature and source of the monies stolen from BLMIS’s (Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities) customers and returning it to BLMIS’s market-making and proprietary trading businesses, run by Madoff’s sons Mark and Andrew.”

In a statement Saturday, Martin Flumenbaum, the Paul Weiss lawyer who represents Mark and his brother Andrew, made no reference to the recent civil cases against the Madoff family.

• Bernie Madoff’s Devilish Female Partner in Crime

• Mark Madoff’s Shady Charity

Flumenbaum said: “Mark Madoff took his own life today. This is a terrible and unnecessary tragedy. Mark was an innocent victim of his father’s monstrous crime who succumbed to two years of unrelenting pressure from false accusations and innuendo. We are all deeply saddened by this shocking turn of events.”

Ira Lee Sorkin, the lawyer who had represented Bernard Madoff, told The Daily Beast: “This is a tragedy on so many levels.” He declined to elaborate.

The bankruptcy trustee and Justice Department prosecutors remain far from convinced that either Mark Madoff or his brother Andrew are innocent. Investigators believe that even if the brothers did not know much about their father’s Ponzi scheme, as officers of the firm and recipients of tens of millions of dollars from their parents, they may have committed a series of crimes including tax fraud, falsifying records, wire and mail fraud.

Mark Madoff was once regarded as a jovial, smooth, entertaining executive, the University of Michigan graduate lived the Life of Riley at the family firm where he earned more than $5 million a year and carried a series of executive titles, including co-director of trading. He had a fancy house in Greenwich, a great summer spot in Nantucket, enjoyed deep-sea fishing off Montauk, L.I. with on his father’s fleet of fancy boats.

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