A message about white-collar greed
Bernard Madoff clearly will never live long enough to see the end of the 150-year prison sentence he received Monday for swindling thousands of people out of tens of billions of dollars, and there may even be a question about whether the term will survive Madoff's appeals that it is too harsh. But there's no denying or diminishing the message it sends: White-collar crime has serious human consequences.
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin stated the situation clearly as he handed down the maximum sentence Madoff could have faced.
"Here the message must be sent that Mr. Madoff's crimes were extraordinarily evil and that this kind of manipulation of the system is not just a bloodless crime that takes place on paper, but one instead that takes a staggering toll," Chin said.
Unfortunately, this type of crime also is not uncommon - even at mind-boggling levels.
Even as Madoff was being sentenced, David Hernandez, of Downers Grove, was being formally indicted in Peoria on federal charges that he operated a Ponzi scheme that bilked investors including radio personality Mike North and chicagosportswebio.com of $11 million, promising high returns while diverting funds for his personal use. And, Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford remained in jail awaiting a bond determination on charges he swindled $7 billion from investors, using much of the money to finance his own lavish lifestyle.
Crimes like these, as Chin emphasized, hurt real people, often causing more harm than just the loss of money.
"Life has been a living hell. It feels like the nightmare we can't wake from," Madoff victim Carla Hirshhorn told The Associated Press. And, robbed of their life savings, investors like Hirschhorn and others who are both unable to retire and unable to find work to sustain themselves, will themselves suffer for the rest of their lives because of Madoff's greed.
Is 150 years excessive? Well, it's obviously a life sentence for a criminal of any age. For the 71-year-old Madoff, even the minimum 12-year sentence his attorneys asked for could be a life sentence, and even a harsher term in the range of 20 years would likely keep him behind bars until his death.
But Chin's sensational figure gets attention in a way smaller terms cannot. It sends an unmistakable message that not only is Madoff being punished for his own crimes but anyone who commits a similar crime had better be prepared for a long, cold life behind bars.
To be sure, Madoff's sentence does not, cannot, restore the lives and fortunes of his many victims. But it does dramatically acknowledge the very serious human consequences of his crimes and, hopefully as a slap across the face of anyone else who would also contemplate such crimes, may help protect the lives and fortunes of others.