Rumor: Madoff to be sent to medium-security federal prison

[Alcibiades]

I cannot seem to find if this has made the news, but there is a rumor that Madoff will not be sent to a low-security facility or camp. Apparently, because he's serving 150 years, he's ineligible to serve his time at such a place. Most of the famous white collar criminals you know of who get sent to low-security facilities are serving much shorter sentences, whereas Madoff warrants a higher custody level.

There was speculation that Madoff would be sent to a low-security facility:

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/crime/ny-bzpris2912922618jun28,0,868123.story

The same article speculated that, if Madoff were to get more than 25 years, he might have been sent to a maximum security facility. It now appears that neither of those things will happen. Instead, it is rumored, Madoff will be sent to the medium-security facility at Butner, NC. Seems sensible, and it is in compliance with the custody level practices of the BoP, it would seem.

[Kittycat]

1. Rumor: I'm going to win the lotto tomorrow.

And they don't even draw numbers on thursday.

[Alcibiades]

4. Just sayin'

That's what I heard. If so, he'd be in a real facility with real inmates, though not the folks thought to be most dangerous. It is, at a minimum, not a country club.

Anyway, that's what I heard, take it for what it's worth. We'll know soon enough.

[vadawg]

2. the classification system consists of many different inputs that caterogorize inmates

these classification reports then show the correct security level of a prisoner, IE non violent inmates tend to not be in maximum security unless there is an escape risk or some other unusual circumstance no matter the length of sentence. So i would be very surprised if he ends up in maximum security unless there are very unusual circumstances.

[Alcibiades]

8. You're right, but several factors indicate a higher

custody level would be warranted in this case:

Madoff pled guilty to 11 counts of "securities fraud, money laundering, making false statements, perjury, investment advisor fraud, wire and mail fraud, theft from employee benefit funds, and filing false documents with the SEC" That's a lot of charges. The severity of the current offense is one of the factors used in determining custody level (the PDF of the policy can be found at http://www.bop.gov/policy/progstat/5100_008.pdf )

Length of sentence (or, rather, "months until release) is also a factor. According to the document cited above:

"This item reflects the estimated number of months the inmate is
expected to be incarcerated. Consecutive federal sentences will
be added together for classification purposes. Federal sentences
may have different beginning dates, based on the Judgment Order.
There may even be a computation in SENTRY with a beginning date
in the future. Based on the inmate’s sentence(s), enter the
total number of months remaining, less 15% (for sentences over 12
months), and credit for any jail time served. This item is not
figured into the security point total but impacts the Sentence
Length Public Safety Factor.
Example: An adult convicted of Breaking and Entering under the
Sentence Reform Act is sentenced to eight years. The expected
length of incarceration is (96 months x 85% = 81.6 months).
Round to the nearest whole number to get 82 and subtract any jail
time credit (180 days) = 76 months to release"

150 years is a lot of months.

[vadawg]

10. yup, but as i said due to the non violent nature of his crimes and his age

i would classify him as medium security due to the length of his sentence otherwise he would be minimum security (if he had say just 12 months to serve)

[Alcibiades]

12. Absolutely

The judge seemed to be particularly moved by the testimony of the victims. The judge called Madoff "extraordinarily evil," and said "No other white collar case is comparable in terms of the scope, duration and enormity of the fraud and the degree of the betrayal.” In the midst of a global economic collapse caused by Wall Street fraud, no one wants to be the judge who is lenient on the guy who stole $170,799,000,000 from investors, some of which are charities. When you consider that many drug offenders get life in this country, 150 years seems appropriate for the number one white collar criminal of all time.

[rwheeler31]

3. Money is more important than people.

[spin]

5. Rich people are more important than average people...

even if they got their money illegally.

Isn't this a great country?

[vadawg]

6. funnily enough his money isnt helping much is it, hes going to die in jail

not sure how much more he could be punished unless we give him hard labour.

[spin]

7. We could tape videos of the people he swindled...

talking about the effect he had on their lives, and make him spend eight hours a day watching them.

[vadawg]

9. are you willing to do that for every other inmate, if not then why just him

every criminal no matter how small has a profound effecton the victims... thats why we treat them all the same or at least try to though it gets hard with certain groups of prisoners..

[Alcibiades]

11. And as bad ad Bernie may be

There are people who have done much, much worse.

[spin]

13. O.K. ... I have to admit that I'm being unfair to good ole Bernie...

I almost act like I'm one of the victims. Fortunately, I'm not. (At least not directly although we probably all are victims to an extent.)

But I will say that I hope the bastard survives for many years in prison, and I hope that those years will be boring and unpleasant. I also hope his prison food sucks.

Oops, here I go again with another crazy idea. Maybe we could ship him to Arizona to Sheriff Joe Arpaio's tent city. He could live on green baloney sandwiches and beans, wear pink underwear and suffer in the heat and cold. He could even spend some time working in one of Arpaio's chain gangs. For entertainment he could watch cable TV (only the Disney Channel and the Weather Channel) and G rated movies. And no coffee!

The news media could stop by occasionally and interview him in the 116 degree heat while he was sitting on a cot in his pink underwear, wiping his brow with a pink towel. This might serve as a reminder and a deterrent to the greedy SOB's who are considering taking advantage of our system and ripping off honest hard working people.

I just hope that Bernie doesn't end up in some "Club Fed" resort style prison.

And by the way, I don't have a hell of a lot of compassion for Bernie's wife who withdrew 15.5 million dollars from her bank accounts weeks before Madoff confessed.
Ref: http://www.wowowow.com/post/ruth-madoffs-bernie-madoffs-wife-withdrew-15-m-weeks-arrest-wall-street-journal-204911

And I'm glad the Feds refused to allow her to take her fur coat with her when they kicked her out of her 7 million dollar penthouse.

[Fumesucker]

14. Unless of course there are *no* victims..

Get busted with bag of pot and you are a "criminal", where is the "victim"?

[Alcibiades]

15. My point exactly

Here's someone who swindles people for millions of millions, repeatedly, over many years, and yet there are non-violent drug offenders doing more time, but the MSM is trying to drum up sympathy for him and his wife just because he's a rich guy.

[spin]

16. Not millions and millions, billions and billions...

Federal prosecutors estimated client losses, which included fabricated gains, of almost $65 billion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff

Let's compare that to the GM and Chrysler bailout.

With all the rescue/bailout talk going on here at Autoblog and, oh, just about everywhere else, you may find that it's tough to keep up with it all. Thankfully, the scribes over at Detroit Free Press have consolidated the discussion down to one easy-to-read but tough-to-comprehend figure: $97.4 billion. That's the total you get when adding up the initial $25.4 billion that automakers were promised to help retool their plants to build more fuel efficient cars; the $25.5 billion that auto suppliers have banded together to seek from the Feds and the $39 billion in loans that General Motors and Chrysler have requested from the feds to stave off a worst case scenario.

Of that $97.4 billion, a total of $24.9 billion has already been paid out to General Motors, GMAC, Chrysler and Chrysler Financial. If the entire amount were paid out, every American would then have contributed $874 to the auto rescue/bailout.
http://www.autoblog.com/2009/02/20/total-bailout-bill-97-4-billion-with-a-b/

[Flaneur]

17. Oh, please.

"Every criminal...has a profound effect on the victims."

Unless he is convicted of a victimless crime. We live in Overincarceration Nation.