By Calvin Palmer
Fraudster Bernard Madoff today arrived at his new home for the next 150 years.
Federal Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Linda Thomas said the former financier arrived at the Butner, North Carolina, facility after leaving federal jail in New York City yesterday.
Madoff has a projected release date of Nov. 14, 2139, assuming he gets early release credit for good behavior while in prison. He is listed in Bureau of Prisons records as prisoner number 61727-054.
The 71-year-old Madoff pleaded guilty in March to charges that his investment advisory business was a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that wiped out thousands of investors and ruined charities.
He admitted to orchestrating a $65 billion fraud over the course of two decades.
The Butner Federal Correctional Complex, located about 45 miles northwest of Raleigh.
Other notorious inmates of the facility include John Rigas, founder of Adelphia Communication, and his son, Tim, who were convicted on multiple charges of securities fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and bank fraud; Jonathan Pollard, the American convicted of spying for Israel more than two decades ago; and Omar Abdel-Rahman who was sentenced to life in prison in 1995 for his role in a plot to kill Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and blow up New York City landmarks.
The point of handing out a 150-year sentence to a 71-year-old man speaks volumes as to the rational thought process that underpins the American judicial system.
It reduces justice and the law to the absurd and infantile level of a Disney cartoon. Apparently, Americans like it that way.
[Based on reports by newsday.com and Associated Press.]
Calvin Palmer's Weblog 
Oh stop Calvin………..could you not interject a “some” in the thrashing of the American people?
Madoff earned all those years as each crime he was accused of simply carried separate amounts of time.The 150 is the tally.
It wasn’t a willy-nilly number handed down.
How about the sentences to run concurrently instead of a nonsensical 150-year total?
“Some” is negated by the fact that I am not aware of any American having commented on the ludicrous length of Madoff’s prison sentence.
Even you are attempting to justify it.
There you go again……..I by no means am trying to “justify” anything.I was merely trying to explain the number.
I am not aware how the concurrent status is in the tally. Our press tends to take the most sensational verbage approach.
I haven’t dissected the sentencing or been all that interested in his foul ups. I file it under all the other greedy bastards folly in my mind and let it go.
The ludicrous part of the sentence is moot.
And I am of the “some” Americans you speak of, believe me..,or I wouldn’t be on a blog
spouting off daily and trying to see other points of view.
Do US trials end with “Thhhhaaaat’s all folks!”? 😉
zelda, respectfully, I have often found these sentences a bit strange myself. I’m a great admirer of our country cousins ‘over the pond’ but I must admit that I’m puzzled by their actions at times. Sentencing has always seemed a zany process to me. Why not simply sentence someone to whole life imprisonment without parole? It would seem more sensible to me than giving a 71 year old man 150 years. Unless he has discovered the secret of eternal life, he probably won’t serve one 15th of his sentence. The cheat. [Pun intended.] 😉
Regards.
OS.
Dear OS. and Andy Poo,
I guess it’s just as simple as it being a different system.The number 150 we get hung up on is just the tally of each charge Madoff has against him………The correct number as per the above was 240 years!!!!The judge can whittle it down on the leway on each charge the law allows per the intent and severity of each charge.
No one would ever think he would actually serve that time……….it’s just the tally of the crimes he committed.Kind of another way to insure he gets life etc. etc.It’s just the way the system here works.
The wigs the judges wear in England seem Monty Python to us here , but we realize that is the British system .
Putting the black cloth on the judges head in a capital case looks silly to us too…..but hey…again it’s just the difference in a culture.
We don’t laugh when the British lawyers look like Dame
Edna………
It’s seems elementary to me to quibble or poke fun at anything that is “different” from one’s self.Maybe it should be regarded as a learning curve????
The the That’s all folks!!!!
By the way OS.thank you for being so polite and respectful.
My best,
Zelda
“By the way OS.thank you for being so polite and respectful.”
And thank you for being the same. I always think it’s a shame when folk stop being polite simply because they disagree with someone. We each have a our views, that’s why it’s an interesting world. Calvin is sort of a hybrid, which, I suppose, he gets from being a newspaper editor. He rarely smiles and when he does, as Andy Poo will tell you, you’d rather he didn’t. 😦 But he really is one of the good guys.
As for our strange ways ‘over here’, I never thought they were strange. How strange is that? 🙂
Best regards and I won’t join you two sillies with: The the That’s all folks!!!! 😉
OS.
Well said……..
(toothy smile)
“Calvin is sort of a hybrid.”
That’s me right enough, 56 miles to the gallon.
A veritable Toyota Dracula. 😉