For once justice is served. As some of you probably heard, Bernard Madoff , 71, was sentenced to a maximum of 150 years in federal prison after he admitted in March to running one of the largest and longest financial frauds in recent memory.

US District Judge Denny Chin said: “Here the message must be sent that Mr. Madoff’s crimes were extraordinarily evil,” before ordering a sentence.

Madoff claimed to have as much as $US65 billion in his firm’s accounts at the end of November, but prosecutors said the accounts only held a small fraction of that.

According to the National Business Review, Mr Madoff had run the scam for years through the investment advisory arm of his business, Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC, by promising steady returns and by presenting an air of exclusivity by not taking all comers and recruiting investors via friends and associates.

“I’m sorry; I know that doesn’t help you,” said Mr Madoff, briefly turning to face his victims at the hearing before the judge’s sentence.

In a statement released after the hearing, Mr Madoff’s wife Ruth said: “In the end, to say that I feel devastated for the many whom my husband has destroyed is truly inadequate. Nothing I can say seems sufficient regarding the daily suffering that all those innocent people are enduring because of my husband. But if it matters to them at all, please know that not a day goes by when I don’t ache over the stories that I have heard and read.”

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Source National Business Review