March 28, 2024
Bernie Madoff, infamous Ponzi schemer, dies at 82
Bernie Madoff, whose $65 billion Ponzi scheme made him one of the world’s most hated criminals and destroyed even his own family, died Wednesday at the secure federal medical center in Butner, North Carolina, where he was serving a 150-year sentence, according to prison officials.

The New York Post reported the 82-year-old scam king, who had been suffering from end-stage kidney disease and other chronic ailments, died of natural causes.

Madoff would have turned 83 on April 29.

The federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed Madoff’s death but refused to reveal the cause citing “safety, security and privacy reasons.”

Madoff’s epic stock fraud, which came to light amid the global financial crisis of the late 2000s and remains the biggest in Wall Street history, left more than 37,000 victims in 136 countries in its wake.

Burned investors ranged from retirees who entrusted him with their lives’ savings to celebrities such as Hollywood power couple Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, former Disney studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg and legendary baseball Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax.

A raft of schools and nonprofit organizations also took devastating hits, including Yeshiva University — where Madoff served on the board and which lost more than $100 million, about 8 percent of its endowment.

New York University, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity and the International Olympic Committee were also ripped off, as were several municipal and union pension funds.

Mets owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz were among the investors who cashed out their phony profits but later had to pay back ill-gotten gains — forcing them to sell a minority stake in the team and to slash its payroll, with predictably disastrous results.

Madoff’s massive ripoff was tied to at least four suicides, including that of his elder son, Mark, who hanged himself on the second anniversary of Madoff’s 2008 arrest.
Story Date: April 15, 2021
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