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Ear to the Ground

Madoff to Plead Guilty

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Posted on Mar 10, 2009
Madoff
AP photo / Louis Lanzano

Meet the press: Bernard Madoff exits Manhattan federal court on Tuesday.

It’s not as though he has many other options, but alleged fraudster Bernie Madoff is preparing to plead guilty on Thursday to swindling thousands of clients out of as much as $50 billion in investments.

Los Angeles Times:

The guilty plea has been expected since March 6, when Madoff’s lawyer said his client would agree to be prosecuted without a grand jury indictment. Madoff, who is free on $10 million bail, is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison after pleading guilty.

Madoff, 70, was arrested on Dec. 11 and charged with fraud for using billions of dollars from new investors to pay off old ones. The day before, he told relatives that his business was “one big lie,” prosecutors said in court papers.

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By Folktruther, March 12, 2009 at 10:35 am Link to this comment

The American power system is sanitizing and muffling this case by focuing on the Lone Perpetrator, as they do on Lone Assassins.  It is apparent that the implications of this case are explosive.

It apparently was widely known on Wall Street that he was not buying stocks with the money he got, and this went on for more than 15 years.  The SEC and others covered up for him, his family and his co-conspirators, despite a number of highly credible accusations of fraud filed with the SEC.

There are rumors that Israel is involved.  This therefore involves the entire Zionist financial system which probably includes more scams like this one.  It is being hushed up to protect finacial capitalism as well as Zionism.

But in addition, drug money appears to be involved.  Madoff may well have put at least part of the money in drug tafficing, as a financial analyst before the SEC has testified.  And drug lords are very touchy about their money, their motto being ‘we make you rick or we make you dead.’

All this is being covered up by this unacknowledged plea bargaining, which may well result in a few years in jail and then release on the grounds of illness and old age.  The whole American power system is totally corrupt.

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By RAE, March 11, 2009 at 9:33 am Link to this comment

I fail to understand the difference between what Madoff has been doing and what the banking/financial systems have been doing. Words and concepts such as “right” and “fair” simply aren’t in their lexicon.

The whole thing is a game to them… and the only valid outcome is that they WIN… all the marbles, all the time.

Makes you kinda sick to your stomach, doesn’t it?

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By Ed, March 11, 2009 at 8:10 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

America is full of crooks: bankers, politicians, car salesmen, bureaucrats, real estate agents, investment counselors, et al. Just ask any indigenous American.

That just begs the question: do those of you that have moved your investments into gold actually have the gold in hand? Or do you just have a piece of paper that says you own the gold?

With respect to Madoff, the entire family should be stripped of all wealth and possessions, Bernard executed within hours of his guilty plea and the cost of the bullet charged to his family. I always did like the Oriental concept of honor.

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By coloradokarl, March 11, 2009 at 7:09 am Link to this comment

Cyrena, The money was paid out to investors as they cashed in. That’s a Ponzi scam. $1 billion is the “profit”. All the Payoffs are ill gotten gains and make the “investors”  Co-Conspirators. Chapter 2 of the Bernie Madoff Saga.

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By cyrena, March 11, 2009 at 1:08 am Link to this comment

By Eric L. Prentis, March 10 at 4:53 pm #

Bernie Madoff, lock him up and throw away the key. More to follow?

~*~*

Eric,

I’m thinking there may in fact be…more to follow, but this is anti-climatic. He never had an option about going to jail, and he’s 70.

So in fact, this is a sweet plea bargin, that HE has offered, and that will be accepted. Something tells me that the wife is calling all of these shots, and that not particularly surprising.

Bottom line, your ass is going to jail anyway, and I don’t care. But, you’re not taking the rest of us, (wife/kids) down with you.

So, another episode from the annals of criminal justice. They do the crime and never have to pay restitution to the victims, which in this case, should be possible. Even if it takes years to process it, based on the books that he did keep, the money should be traceable. Then again, they’ve only found about a billion of the $50B. WTF?

How does one hide that much flippin’ money? I know it takes nothing to STEAL it, but I just don’t get how that much of it can be missing.

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By Allan Gurfinkle, March 10, 2009 at 2:13 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Why didn’t Madoff apply for a bailout.  He could have argued that the fund was too big to fail.  Sixty billion and everything could have been put right.  This is exactly what we’re doing for citi, aig, etc., why should Madoff have to suffer ?

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By Spiritgirl, March 10, 2009 at 1:57 pm Link to this comment

When I first saw the words “plea deal” I was dumb-founded!  Not only does this man need to be under the jail for what he’s done, his wife whom he claims should be allowed to keep $60bn “because it is her money”, should be allowed to join him!  All money should be repaid to those people that “invested” with this bloodsucker!  It is about time that some of these criminals be held accountable for the destruction that they have laid upon this nation!  Enough, enough, enough!!!!

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By Eric L. Prentis, March 10, 2009 at 1:53 pm Link to this comment

Bernie Madoff, lock him up and throw away the key. More to follow?

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