Madoff says his victims had been 'greedy' In his 2nd jailhouse interview, Wall Road scammer Bernard Madoff informed a reporter that his victims were "greedy" and the U.S. federal government is a "Ponzi scheme," though he insisted that he's a "good person." "Everyone was greedy," said Madoff, based on Ny Magazine. "I just went along. It's not an excuse." Madoff loaded the interview with caveats, claiming that he instructed investors they were superior off investing in government bonds and that he ...

Bernard Madoff has decided not to appeal the 150-year prison sentence he received for operating the biggest investment fraud in history. "We are not going to appeal," Madoff attorney Ira Lee Sorkin told CNN on Thursday. Sorkin said he met with Madoff this week at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan. "Even if the Court of Appeals sends it back, certainly a guidelines sentence under the circumstances would give him a life sentence," he added. Citing crimes ...

Federal prosecutors are seeking the forfeiture of Bernard Madoff's four homes and other assets after Madoff's guilty plea to masterminding a massive investment fraud. Madoff is in jail at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan after pleading guilty to operating on the largest Ponzi schemes in history. He faces 150 years in prison when he is sentenced June 16. Many of the assets are held in the name of Madoff's wife, Ruth. That should not prevent the ...

Bernard Madoff, who pleaded guilty to operating a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, is worth up to $826 million, according to a document filed with a federal court on Friday. Madoff values his business -- Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, which is currently being liquidated -- at $700 million, said the document, which estimated his wealth totals at least $823 million. Real estate from around the world worth $22 million is listed, including a New York City apartment valued at $7 million ...

Richard Friedman lost more than $3 million to Bernard Madoff's investment scheme. Following the disgraced broker's guilty plea Thursday, Friedman said he hopes Madoff lives a long time. "He is going to be sentenced for 150 years. I hope he lives a very long life," said Friedman, one of several victims who was allowed to sit in the courtroom for Madoff's plea. Madoff, 70, pleaded guilty to charges that he swindled investors through his firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities ...

Bernie Madoff's lawyer, Ira Sorkin, told a federal Judge Denny Chin on Tuesday that Madoff expects to plead guilty to charges that will put him in prison for up to 150 years. The U.S. attorney's office has filed 11 counts against Madoff for his part in the decades-long Ponzi scheme, now estimated in court documents to amount to $64.8 billion, considered the largest in history. In fact, the new dollar amount cited in a Justice Department communication to Sorkin ...

I know what to do with that $173 million in uncashed checks investigators found in Bernie Madoff's desk drawer last week: send them to his feeder-fund customers. These people also could use the bling Bernie's been secretly sending to friends. While the Securities Investor Protection Corp. is helping Bernie's closest friends and investors with recovery of up to $500,000, the unregistered feeder-fund victims are likely to get little. Here's why: As it stands, the SIPC's charter ...

Historians looking for an early sign that the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression might be deeper than expected could do worse than listen in on a predawn teleconference one Friday last spring. Top Treasury and Federal Reserve Bank officials hunched over their phones in a last-ditch bid to bail out the giant investment bank Bear Stearns Cos. But a crucial voice was missing from the emergency conference call: Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. ...

The wife of accused swindler Bernard Madoff pulled $15.5 million out of a Madoff-related brokerage firm in Massachusetts in the weeks before his arrest, authorities there disclosed Wednesday. The withdrawals by Ruth Madoff took place in November and December, according to a complaint filed by state regulators against Cohmad Securities, a firm they said was "intertwined" with Madoff's New York-based company. The regulators say Cohmad has refused to provide information about its ties to Madoff, who is accused of ...