Bernard Madoff got the maximum 150-year prison term today for his “staggering” Ponzi scheme that devastated thousands of people, the New York Times reports. U.S. District Judge Denny Chin called his crimes “extraordinarily evil.”
Victims of the $65 billion fraud told a Chin that he should show no mercy and Madoff himself acknowledged the damage he had inflicted and express regret. The sentence means that Madoff, 71, presumably will spend the rest of his life in prison. Chin said no one [other than Madoff’s own attorney] had urged leniency.