June 29th, 2009
L: Wow, Bernie Madoff is going to be really old when he gets out of prison, like really old. The Ponzi scammer extraordinaire has been sentenced to 150 years in prison by Judge Denny Chin today. Madoff ran the largest Ponzi scam in U.S. history for more than 25 years.
The government has also imposed a $170 billion judgment against madoff.
A: Who’s Bernie Madoff?
L: Are you kidding? He’s the guy that stole all the celebs money like Kiera Sedwick and Kevin Bacon. Remember Kevin said in the press he needed to work because they’d invested so much in the scheme.
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sp8cecowby says:
Personally, I don’t feel sympathy for most of his victims. They sought him out (joined country clubs so that they could get introduced to one of his employees, etc.) and they treated him like a mix of rock star and Mother Theresa.
They were told they were making up to 15% on their investments, wellllll over the standard rate of return. They believed him because they wanted to believe him. Blinded by greed.
Of course, as Saint W. C. Fields says, “you can’t cheat an honest man,” and it’s still mostly true in this case.
Tempting people with a big unearned payoff is still the best way to rope them into a scam. Not really much difference between Madoff and Nigerian prince’s 419 scam, except the level of returns that Bernie promised were low enough that a lot more people fell for it.