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Now that he is serving 150 years for his $65 billion Ponzi scheme fraud, Bernie Madoff is totally unrepentant in jail.
As detailed in this fascinating piece from New York magazine, Madoff now hangs out with Carmine Persico, the former mob boss, and Jonathan Pollard, the ex-spy. He shows absolutely no remorse about what he did. "Fxxx my victims, '' he says. "I carried them for twenty years, and now I'm doing 150 years."
According to the piece, there are now groupies hanging around Madoff and prisoners asking for investment advice, not realizing that as a con man, he didn't invest any of his own money. Madoff claims he was just looking after people who were throwing money at him, according to the magazine. Completely remorseless, he says the people who lost their money deserved it.
New York reports: "Pollard's former cellmate John Bowler recalls a conversation between Pollard and Madoff: 'Bernie was telling a story about an old lady. She was bugging him for her money, so he said to her, 'Here's your money,' and gave her a check. When she saw the amount she says, 'That's unbelievable,' and she says, 'Take it back.' And urged her friends [to invest].' …. 'People just kept throwing money at me,' Madoff related to a prison consultant who advised him on how to endure prison life. 'Some guy wanted to invest, and if I said no, the guy said, 'What, I'm not good enough?' ' One day, Shannon Hay, a drug dealer …. asked about his crimes. 'He told me his side. He took money off of people who were rich and greedy and wanted more,' says Hay, who was released in December. People, in other words, who deserved it."
One of the interesting features of life in jail is that it allows people to be themselves and Madoff has taken that to heart. Given that he will only be leaving jail one way – in a box – he would say there is no point being any other way.
Still, this might also be telling us about the greed that got his victims in trouble. Either way, it's a sobering reminder of human frailty. Behind every Ponzi scheme con man, there is a willing victim.
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