Dying Madoff Seeks Release from Prison; Payout to Victims Close to $14B

By Hellen Zaboulani

On Friday, a court-appointed trustee said that Bernard Madoff’s former clients are about to see their total recovery reach almost $14 billion. Simultaneously, the shamed investment advisor is dying in prison and awaits a U.S. court’s judgment on whether or not he can leave prison early so that he doesn’t have to spend his last days in a cell.

Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, says the payout, which includes money committed by the Securities Investor Protection Corp., represents 80 percent of the $17.5 billion that customers lost in what is being called the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. As per the NY Post, Picard said he already started distributing $369 million to 854 accounts, for a total payout of $13.93 billion to eligible customers. As of Friday, Picard already fully paid back 1,469 clients, or 64 percent of the 2,282 eligible customer accounts affected. Another $2.38 billion has been paid out from a Department of Justice compensation fund to clients and other Madoff victims, including schools, pension funds and charities.

At the same time, Madoff who pleaded guilty in 2009 to 11 criminal charges and has already served close to 11 years in jail, is dying in prison and awaits the decision on whether the court will allow him to be free. On February 5th, the 81-year-old’s lawyer requested a “compassionate release” on his 150-year sentence, being that he is confined to a wheelchair, suffering from kidney failure and other serious medical conditions, and is said to have less than 18 months left to live. “It is evident from a review of the [applicable] factors that Madoff presents no danger to any person or the community,” says the court filing of the request. “He has no history of violence, he has less than 18 months to live and the public nature of his crimes guarantee that he would be unable to participate in financial or investment-related activities ever again.”

Madoff’s victims were given a chance to weigh in on the decision by Friday. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan will need to reply to Madoff’s request by Wednesday March 4, with victims’ comments likely made public. The decision of whether or not to free Madoff rests with Circuit Judge Denny Chin, who as a federal district judge had said Madoff’s crimes were “extraordinarily evil”. Madoff, who is now housed in a medical facility at the federal prison complex in Butner, North Carolina, has also asked President Donald Trump for a pardon in a commuted sentence. That request is still pending.

A spokesman for Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman declined to comment, except to say that prosecutors would respond to the request in a court filing. The former lead prosecutor in Madoff’s case, Marc Litt, commented to say there’s “no evidence in the public record to justify compassionate release.”