Bernie Madoff died of hypertension, atherosclerosis, and kidney failure, at the age of 82 in Federal Medical Center, Butner, a federal prison for inmates with special health needs near Butner, North Carolina.
Bernie Madoff, who orchestrated the largest Ponzi scheme in history, died while serving a 150-year prison sentence.
The investment fraudster had been battling high blood pressure for a decade and his kidneys had been failing for eight years.
The disgraced financier was cremated in North Carolina, where he’d been serving jail time.
Madoff pled guilty in 2009 to running a vast Ponzi scheme that prosecutors said swindled thousands, many of them elderly and out of their life savings.
The scheme began in the early 1970s, and by the time Madoff was arrested in December 2008, had defrauded as many as 37,000 people in 136 countries out of up to $65 billion.
Madoff’s attornies had requested he be released amid the coronavirus pandemic, saying he suffered from end-stage renal disease. That request was denied.
His victims included the famous – film director Steven Spielberg, actor Kevin Bacon, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Weisel – as well as ordinary investors.
Madoff said he started the fraud, in which he appeared to deliver steady returns to clients, but was actually using money from new investors to pay off existing shareholders, in the 1990s because he felt “compelled” to give investors solid returns despite the recession and weak stock market.
A judge also issued a $171 billion forfeiture order on Madoff’s assets. Under the arrangement, the government also obtained his wife’s interest in all property, including $80 million that she claimed belonged to her, leaving Ruth Maddoff with $2.5 million in assets.
Prior to his downfall, Madoff was viewed as a self-made and respected figure among financial professionals as the head of the seemingly successful Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities firm. He also served as the chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market in 1990, 1991, and 1993.
The fall of Madoff took a toll on his family.
