Sense on Cents

Bernie Madoff

I may stand outside of the mainstream, but I believe Bernie Madoff deserves special treatment when his sentence is handed down on June 29th.

No surprise that Bernie stays true to his cowardice form in begging for mercy from the court, as the Wall Street Journal offers Madoff Seeks Leniency in Sentence:

Bernard Madoff asked a federal judge on Tuesday to sentence him to as little as 12 years in prison after he pleaded guilty earlier this year to operating a massive, decades-long Ponzi scheme.

Talk about chutzpah. Wow!!! Does Bernie think he was involved in a pedestrian white collar financial scam? His lawyer, Ira Sorkin, also provides comic relief in his request:

In a letter filed late Monday and made public Tuesday, Ira Sorkin, a lawyer for Mr. Madoff, asked U.S. District Judge Denny Chin to sentence his client to less than a life sentence.

“Mr. Madoff is currently 71 years old and has an approximate life expectancy of 13 years,” Mr. Sorkin said. “A prison term of 12 years — just short of an effective life sentence — will sufficiently address the goals of deterrence, protecting the public and promoting respect for the law without being ‘greater than necessary’ to achieve them.”

In the alternative, Mr. Sorkin said a sentence of 15 years to 20 years would effectively achieve those goals. “Indeed, such a range will appropriately eliminate concerns for disparate treatment among similarly situated nonviolent offenders,” Mr. Sorkin said.

Is Mr. Sorkin serious? Let’s review his statement: ” . . . eliminate concerns for disparate treatment among similarly situated nonviolent offenders.”

Who has a concern that Bernie will be treated worse? What crimes and criminals bear any resemblance to the Madoff fraud?

Nonviolent offenders? When will our judicial system properly dispense justice for emotional abuse inflicted upon victims in the course of white collar crimes? Why has our judicial process allowed white collar criminals to define their crimes as nonviolent and thus deserving of lessened penalties?

I strongly believe that white collar crimes and criminals are treated far too gently in our judicial sentencing process.

Thus, if I were to sentence Bernie Madoff, I would first want to know how many investors were in his fund. If there were 1000 investors, I would recommend one life sentence per investor, that is, 1000 concurrent life sentences. Why?

I believe each investor is now in an emotional jail cell and likely will be for the remainder of his/her life. Thus, this sentence is the only fair sentence to address that emotional pain and torture.

I do not consider myself a vindictive individual. In fact, I consider myself honest, charitable, and fair. I would welcome hearing the rationale as to how true justice may otherwise be dispensed. That sentence strikes me as fair for all involved.

I have to believe there is a special place in hell for Bernie Madoff.

LD

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 4:13 PM and is filed under Bernie Madoff, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.