Madoff gets 150 years in prison!

[Valmy]

Huh?  What's the difference?

The difference is pretty simple: a condo is an apartment you own.  People tend to call their apartments 'condos' in order to make themselves sound like they have a nice place even though they do not own a house.

I meant is jokingly, like if you are going to pay that much you might as well get the honor of having it called a condomenium, or better a penthouse.

[KRonn]

His wife was left with 2.5 million, which the claim is it was her money. But she was part of the scam, wasn't she? I wonder if she'll also be brought up on charges at some point. If not, or in addition to, I'm thinking she'll be sued.

[Valmy]

His wife was left with 2.5 million, which the claim is it was her money. But she was part of the scam, wasn't she? I wonder if she'll also be brought up on charges at some point. If not, or in addition to, I'm thinking she'll be sued.

She got away with it, it seems at this point.

All the assets should be confiscated to pay back the investors it seems to me.

[Caliga]

Those of Germanic heritage prefer world-domination plans involving massive invasions and massacres, not financial diddling.

One thing I'd never be accused of having is subtlety. 

[Savonarola]

He'll probably be the first person to be shivved at a minimum security prison for white collar criminals.   

[Martinus]

Sorry that I won't join the lynching mob here, but the sentence is extremely unjust.

Take his money away, sure, but getting a life sentence for something that does not involve murder or cruel rape is just fucked up.

[Valmy]

Take his money away, sure, but getting a life sentence for something that does not involve murder or cruel rape is just fucked up.

How is that fucked up?  What he did ruined alot more lives than raping or murdering and far more damaging to society.

We are talking about 65 billion dollars here Mart.  People like him threaten to destroy our entire system, which no raping or murdering could achieve.  We depend on people following the rules.

[Martinus]

Take his money away, sure, but getting a life sentence for something that does not involve murder or cruel rape is just fucked up.

How is that fucked up?  What he did ruined alot more lives than raping or murdering and far more damaging to society.

We are talking about 65 billion dollars here Mart.

It's still just money. I don't buy into the school of penalization that argues that 1,000,000 petty thefts is as bad as bank robbery or that 1,000,000 instances of jaywalking is as bad as murder.

[alfred russel]

Sorry that I won't join the lynching mob here, but the sentence is extremely unjust.

Take his money away, sure, but getting a life sentence for something that does not involve murder or cruel rape is just fucked up.

As opposed to other crimes, such as humane rape?

[alfred russel]

We are talking about 65 billion dollars here Mart.  People like him threaten to destroy our entire system, which no raping or murdering could achieve.  We depend on people following the rules.

The $65 billion is kind of gorrilla math. It is the paper value of the funds that he told people they had, not what they invested.

[Martinus]

Anyway, I'm curious how such things are approached in non-US legal systems - because in Poland (and I suspect this is similar in some other continental Europe countries) we really do not have the same concept of compounding the penalty.

So we have a crime of stealing a "petty amount of money", or a "moderate amount of money" or a "grand amount of money", but if you commit several instances of the same kind of crime before being caught and then are tried for it, it is treated as one big crime, rather than a number of smaller crimes.

And on top of that, while our legal system allows for adding up penalties for individual crimes, the total cannot be bigger than the maximum penalty for any of the individual crimes involved.

[Valmy]

It's still just money.

He stole more money than the ENTIRE economy of Belarus man.

I don't buy into the school of penalization that argues that 1,000,000 petty thefts is as bad as bank robbery or that 1,000,000 instances of jaywalking is as bad as murder.

What he did was a felony already.  How can you compare petty thefts and jay walking to that?  Marty analogies strike again.

[Martinus]

Sorry that I won't join the lynching mob here, but the sentence is extremely unjust.

Take his money away, sure, but getting a life sentence for something that does not involve murder or cruel rape is just fucked up.

As opposed to other crimes, such as humane rape?

Well, I meant excessive cruelty rape. Something like torture followed by gangbang as opposed to a "date rape", for example.

[Valmy]

So we have a crime of stealing a "petty amount of money", or a "moderate amount of money" or a "grand amount of money", but if you commit several instances of the same kind of crime before being caught and then are tried for it, it is treated as one big crime, rather than a number of smaller crimes.

He would get a very long jail time for financial fraud, which is a very dangerous and serious crime, anyway.  It is not just the amount of money it is also the damage this sort of thing does to our entire society.

[Caliga]

I agree with Marti in this case... the sentence does seem excessive.  OTOH, the intent of the judge I am sure is just to make it difficult for Madoff to ever walk out of prison alive.  Clearly the 150 is supposed to act as some kind of a deterrent.  The problem with this approach is that people who are sociopathic in the way Madoff is think they'll never be caught, so I hardly think anyone is going to be deterred.  In fact, I think deterrent sentencing is probably ineffective in virtually any circumstance.