Bernie Madoff, the architect of one of the greatest financial fraudsters in American history, has passed away at the age of 82.
Mr. Madoff, former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market and a fixture on Wall Street for decades, shocked the world in December 2008 when he confessed that his investment activities were a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme. He pleaded guilty in March 2009 and received the longest sentence allowed.
The scale and duration of his fraud were elusive. Initial reports indicated that $ 65 billion had been wiped out from Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities.
But it soon became clear that the assets Mr. Madoff bragged about management existed only on paper. He hadn’t invested clients’ money but instead shuffled billions of dollars through his company’s bank account, making profit statements year after year. Ultimately, a court-appointed trustee estimated that Mr. Madoff had received $ 17 billion in customer money through the scheme.
A statement from the Bureau of Prisons on Wednesday said that Mr. Madoff died at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, NC.Madoff’s death came about a year after his attorney asked a federal court to release him from prison. because he was fighting a terminal illness.