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Bernie Madoff pleads guilty: faces up to 150 year sentence

by Amy Judd | March 12, 2009 at 07:11 am

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Bernie Madoff has pleaded guilty to 11 counts and will sentenced on June 16th. He could get as much as 150 years in jail.

Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff will be sentenced on June 16th, CNN reports. Madoff faces up to 150 years in prison

He is currently on his way to jail and he was escorted out of the courtroom.

Madoff earlier told the judge he "cannot adequately express" how sorry he is.

Madoff told the judge his Ponzi scheme began in the early 1990s in response to a recession.

Two investors who spoke at the hearing said they opposed the guilty plea. One said she wanted it to wait until the lost money is found.

Madoff said that when he started the scheme he hoped it would only be for a short amount of time.

Prosecutors said the fraud had been going on since at least the 1980s, but Madoff told the court that it started in the early 1990s, in response to the then recession.

Madoff's 11 charges include four counts of fraud.

In addition, he has pleaded guilty to three counts of money laundering, making false statements, perjury, making a false filing to the US financial watchdog, and theft from an employee benefit plan.

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Mary Richard

at 07:27 on March 12th, 2009

CNN reporting he's on his way to prison - no more penthouse arrest for him!

René

at 08:22 on March 12th, 2009

Only good if they confiscate all his assets including his wife's, family's and the friends he mailed jewelry to. something needs to be given back to his victims, even if only nickels on the dollar.

Fred Miller

at 10:48 on March 12th, 2009

UPDATED

http://my.nowpublic.com/world/madoff-made-jail

djsblack

at 16:34 on March 12th, 2009

To fully understand the magnitude of Madoff's fraud, the following lists are quite an eye opener. From the Wall Street Journal's public resource information:

The number of victims from Bernard Madoff's alleged Ponzi scheme continues to grow. A list with thousands of names of clients who invested money with Mr. Madoff was released as part of a bankruptcy-court filing. Below, see some of the most exposed investors and sort by the amount of potential losses.(See full Madoff Client List)

Scrivener

at 08:02 on March 13th, 2009

What if Madoff was set up... placed under the covert influence of little-understood EMF (electromagnetic microwave radiation) "directed energy weapons," used as a Pavlovian "mind control" mechanism to inflict pain and cause mental confusion, even impairment, under intense or prolonged exposure?

What if Madoff was then instructed by a very devious, covert, and virulently anti-Semitic "program" run by powerful operatives to deposit his investors' funds in a single account, instead of investing those funds for maximum growth?

It sounds far-fetched... but extortion would provide a plausible motive, and would explain Madoff's inconsistent behavior and the puzzlement of those who knew him and still cannot believe he would commit such a crime of his own volition.

Such a criminal extortion/mind control scenario also could provide a plausible explanation as to why government regulators allowed this Ponzi schemne to happen -- when they were tipped off by a whistle-blower a decade ago.

Doubters: see http://mindjustice.org