Madoff hauled off to jail

AFP:

Wall Street conman Bernard Madoff was led handcuffed to jail Thursday after pleading guilty to tricking thousands of people out of billions of dollars in one of history's biggest financial scams.

Madoff, 70, told a packed New York court he was "deeply sorry and ashamed" for the decades-long Ponzi scheme, and the former financial titan and chairman of the Nasdaq stock market now looks likely to die behind bars.

He faces a maximum sentence on June 16 of 150 years after pleading guilty to all 11 counts of fraud, perjury and theft. Prosecutors also want to track down an astounding 177 billion dollars they say passed through Madoff's hands.

Judge Denny Chin asked Madoff, wearing a grey suit, dark tie and white shirt, how he would plead.

"Guilty," Madoff replied.

Defence lawyers said the silver-haired money manager should be allowed to remain free on bail in his seven-million-dollar Manhattan apartment until sentencing.

But Chin responded: "It is my intention to remand Mr Madoff" triggering applause from victims who had gathered in the court room.

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It is hard to imagine why Chin would delay sending the guy to jail. Madoff has no hope of making restitution which would be his only hope for avoiding jail. At this point even a 15 year sentence would be a life sentence for a guy like him. The government has been able to find only a billion in assets from the over $68 billion he took in. Of course much of what he took in went right back out in the form of bogus interest and dividend payments. The victims will probably have to subtract those payments from their potential deductions for losses on their taxes. However, many of the entities who invested with him were tax exempt already so they will not get any benefit from a deductio.