Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff’s got nothing but time as he serves his sentence in a North Carolina prison for defrauding a vast network of clients out of billions of dollars, and he’s apparently not averse to spending some of it sitting for interviews that aren’t likely to help his standing much. Take his latest session with ABC that ran on Thursday, for example. –KA

AFP via Google News:

Madoff told ABC television that while he suffers from “horrible nightmares” in his North Carolina prison cell and feels despair over his estrangement from family members, he “can live with” the anger of people he defrauded.

“Not seeing my family and knowing they hate me” is the worst thing about being in prison, he said. “I betrayed them.”

Asked what he’d like to tell his grandchildren, he said: “I am sorry to have caused them pain.”

But Madoff seemed far less troubled about the plight of the clients who had trusted him with their life savings, many of whom lost all they had.

“I understand why clients hate me. The gravy train is over. I can live with that,” Madoff said.

“The average person thinks I robbed widows and orphans. I made wealthy people wealthier.”

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