Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff dies in prison

He admitted to swindling investors out of billions of dollars over the years

Bernard Madoff, who cheated investors out of billions, has died in prison. AFP

Bernie Madoff, the financier who pleaded guilty to orchestrating the largest Ponzi scheme in history, died in a federal prison early on Wednesday, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

Madoff died at the Federal Medical Centre in Butner, North Carolina, apparently from natural causes, the person said. The person was not authorised to speak publicly and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity.

Last year, Madoff's lawyers filed court papers to try to get the 82-year-old released from prison, saying he had suffered from end-stage renal disease and other chronic medical conditions. The request was denied.

Madoff admitted swindling thousands of clients out of billions of dollars in investments over decades.

A court-appointed trustee has recovered more than $13bn of an estimated $17.5bn that investors put into Madoff’s business. At the time of Madoff’s arrest, fake account statements were telling clients they had holdings worth $60bn.

For decades, Madoff enjoyed an image as a self-made financial guru whose Midas touch defied market fluctuations. A former chairman of the Nasdaq stock market, he attracted a devoted legion of investment clients – from Florida retirees to celebrities such as famed film director Steven Spielberg, actor Kevin Bacon and Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax.

But his investment advisory business was exposed in 2008 as a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that wiped out people’s fortunes and ruined charities and foundations. He became so hated he had to wear a bulletproof vest to court.

Madoff pleaded guilty in March 2009 to securities fraud and other charges, saying he was “deeply sorry and ashamed.”

After several months living under house arrest at his $7 million Manhattan penthouse apartment, he was led off to jail in handcuffs to scattered applause from angry investors in the courtroom.

“He stole from the rich. He stole from the poor. He stole from the in between. He had no values,” former investor Tom Fitzmaurice told the judge at the sentencing. “He cheated his victims out of their money so he and his wife … could live a life of luxury beyond belief.”

US District Judge Denny Chin showed no mercy, sentencing Madoff to the maximum 150 years in prison.

“Here, the message must be sent that Mr. Madoff’s crimes were extraordinarily evil and that this kind of irresponsible manipulation of the system is not merely a bloodless financial crime that takes place just on paper, but it is instead … one that takes a staggering human toll,” Mr Chin said.

The Madoffs also took a severe financial hit: A judge issued a $171bn forfeiture order in June 2009 stripping Madoff of all his personal property, including real estate, investments, and $80m in assets his wife, Ruth, had claimed were hers. The order left her with $2.5m.

The scandal also exacted a personal toll on the family: one of his sons, Mark, killed himself on the second anniversary of his father’s arrest in 2010. And Madoff’s brother, Peter, who helped run the business, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2012, despite claims he was in the dark about his brother’s misdeeds.

Madoff’s other son, Andrew, died from cancer at age 48. Ruth is still living.

Madoff was sent to do what amounted to a life sentence at Butner Federal Correctional Complex, about 45 miles northwest of Raleigh, North Carolina federal prison website listed his probable release date as November 11, 2139.

The rise and fall of Bernie Madoff

Madoff was born in 1938 in a lower-middle-class Jewish neighbourhood in Queens. In the financial world, the story of his rise to prominence – how he left for Wall Street with Peter in 1960 with a few thousand dollars saved from working as a lifeguard and installing sprinklers – became legend.

“They were two struggling kids from Queens. They worked hard,” said Thomas Morling, who worked closely with the Madoff brothers in the mid-1980s setting up and running computers that made their firm a trusted leader in off-floor trading.

“When Peter or Bernie said something that they were going to do, their word was their bond,” Morling said in a 2008 interview.

In the 1980s, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities occupied three floors of a midtown Manhattan high-rise. There, with his brother and later two sons, he ran a legitimate business as middlemen between the buyers and sellers of stock.

Madoff raised his profile by using the expertise to help launch Nasdaq, the first electronic stock exchange, and became so respected that he advised the Securities and Exchange Commission on the system.

But what the SEC never found out was that behind the scenes, in a separate office kept under lock and key, Madoff was secretly spinning a web of phantom wealth by using cash from new investors to pay returns to old ones.

Authorities say that over the years, at least $13bn was invested with Madoff. An old IBM computer cranked out monthly statements showing steady double-digit returns, even during market downturns. As of late 2008, the statements claimed investor accounts totalled $65bn.