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Bernie Madoff expected to plead guilty on Thursday
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by Amy Judd | March 7, 2009 at 02:55 pm
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Bernie Madoff is expected to enter a plea of guilty on Thursday March 12th that he operated a $50 billion Ponzi scheme worldwide.
Madoff's victims have a right to be informed about any court hearing and they have a right to attend any hearing as well, but in this case, as the number of victims are so large, the court is aware that it is impractical for everyone to attend.
That is certainly the case here, prosecutors asserted in the motion they filed Friday evening. Thousands of Mr. Madoff’s known victims are scattered around the world, and some of his victims have not even been identified yet, they said.
Instead known victims will be informed about the hearings, including the one coming up on Thursday through the United States attorney's office Web site. People can send an e-mail request to get these updates by 10am on Wednesday. (usanys.madoff@usdoj.gov)
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On Friday morning Mr. Madoff waived his right to a formal grand jury, which means that the prosecutors can now proceed against him without an indictment. Mr. Madoff has agreed to plead guilty to what is called a criminal information, which includes those crimes to which the defendant has agreed to doing and no others.
It looks like Madoff will plead guilty rather than go to trial.
“The defendant has to agree to the waiver,” said Thomas M. Durkin, a former federal prosecutor and now a partner at Mayer Brown. “If he’s agreed to that, that means he’s agreed to plead guilty — or at least, that’s what happens 99.9 percent of the time.”
Due to Friday developments, it looks like Madoff is one step closer to his day in court.
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (1)
at 22:39 on March 7th, 2009
Amy, this is a good start on news coverage on what I hope what will be an interesting week of Bernie Madoff's hearing and plea in federal court in New York, U.S.