A US appeals court on Friday denied bail to Wall Street fraud convict Bernard Madoff, as prosecutors highlighted public outrage in a slew of emails demanding retribution.
The three-judge panel at the US Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s decision to jail Madoff until his June 16 sentencing, saying that the disgraced money manager might try to escape.
Madoff (70) faces up to 150 years in prison for fraud, money laundering, perjury and theft. Friday’s ruling effectively means he may never spend a night outside a cell again.
For Madoff’s thousands of victims — unaware over at least two decades that he was stealing billions of dollars worth of their investment funds — a life sentence is barely enough.
Emails sent to the judge who presided during Madoff’s guilty plea last week boil with anger at the once-respected Nasdaq chairperson, as well as bewilderment at the slow pace of the probe into his giant fraud.
“You are a murderer … You are a rapist … You are a larcenist,” a victim writes in one of approximately 100 emails released to the media by prosecutors.
“You must be void of any human emotion, which makes you truly evil,” another writes.
Victims represented in the emails run the gamut from rich investors who lost millions in Madoff’s Ponzi scheme to those who invested much smaller amounts and now find themselves bankrupted.
One suggests to the court that Madoff be made to work in a supermarket, clean public toilets and “stand on corners and announce in 101 ways how he’s a creep”.
“Give me my money back, Mr Madoff!” another demands. “It’s only 300Â 000 euros! Much less than the jewelry … your wife is wearing on her left hand! … I feel ashamed to be part of a race that has to share this planet with you!”
Another theme of the emails is frustration that Madoff’s immediate family members, who were closely involved with his business dealings, have not been charged.
Madoff says he acted alone. Legal experts believe his scheme — in which he fooled clients into believing that he was investing their money on the stock market — would have required considerable help.
On Wednesday, prosecutors charged only their second suspect, the accountant who allegedly rubber-stamped Madoff’s fake financial statements.
Prosecutors have also moved to seize millions of dollars worth of assets registered to Madoff’s wife Ruth and their two sons, although none of them has been accused of wrongdoing.
Calling Madoff the “epitome” of everything “messed up in our system”, one email writer urged the court to “make an example out of him AND his trophy wife and their trophy apartment and their trophy treasure”.
Madoff was arrested December 11. Before his guilty plea last week, he was free on bail, living at his $7-million Manhattan apartment under tight surveillance.
Defence attorneys argued that Madoff was highly unlikely to flee or to commit further harm to the community, the chief criteria for whether or not a defendant can be allowed bail.
But prosecutors said he was a flight risk and, given his confession to having lived a life of fraud, could not be trusted.
The appeals court agreed, and Madoff is now held in a correctional center in downtown Manhattan. – AFP