It’s official.
North Carolina now has a new resident.
Mr. Bernard L. Madoff.
Lets meet the neighbors…
To his left is John J. Rigas (born November 14, 1924 in Wellsville, New York) he was one of the founders of Adelphia Communications Corporation, which at its peak was one of the largest cable companies in the United States. He was also the majority owner of the Buffalo Sabres franchise of the National Hockey League. In 2005, he was convicted for multiple accounts of fraud and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
To his right is Randall Harold Cunningham (born December 8, 1941), usually known as Randy or Duke, was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from California’s 50th Congressional District from 1991 to 2005.
Cunningham resigned from the House on November 28, 2005 after pleading guilty to accepting at least $2.4 million in bribes and underreporting his income for 2004. He pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud, and tax evasion. On March 3, 2006, he received a sentence of eight years and four months in prison and an order to pay $1.8 million in restitution.[1] Prior to his political career, he was an officer in the United States Navy for 20 years during which time he became a flying ace for actions during the Vietnam War.
And across the hall is Omar Abdel-Rahman (Arabic: عمر عبد الرحمن) (born May 3, 1938) a blind Egyptian Muslim leader who is currently serving a life sentence at the Butner Medical Center which is part of the Butner Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, North Carolina, United States. His inmate registration number is 34892-054.[1] Formerly a resident of New York City, Abdel-Rahman and nine others were convicted of “seditious conspiracy”,[2] which requires only that a crime be planned, not that it necessarily be attempted. His prosecution grew out of investigations of the World Trade Center 1993 bombings.
Abdel-Rahman was accused of being the leader of Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya (also known as “The Islamic Group”), a militant Islamist movement in Egypt that is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and Egyptian governments. The group is responsible for many acts of violence, including the November 1997 Luxor massacre, in which 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians were killed.
Abdel-Rahman has declared that the United States “certainly will kill me” in jail.
Mr. Madoff will, if he is lucky, spend the rest of his days cleaning toilets and community inmate bathroom floors for pennies. He will also get a chance to socialize with his new neighbors and all the other drug lords and gang leaders currently spending time there at Butner Correctional Facility.
If he is not so lucky, he will be in solitary confinement.
Hmmm, not sure which is worse? Maybe I have the whole lucky / unlucky thing confused.
Of course, being 71 years old; Mr. Madoff will not even come close to completing his 150 year sentence. The 150 years is a message. A message to others that, if we catch you, you will spend the rest of your days in prison.
Of course, it does not address the real problem of corruption in the system, nor incarcerate all the others who looked the other way or did not report anything.
But is it fair?
Is it just?
No. and Yes.
I have heard of many other ideas regarding Mr. Madoff’s sentence.
Such as…
“They should have contemplated more medieval forms of punishment for Madoff, maybe something involving four horses running in different directions, each harnessed to one of Madoff’s limbs.”
OR
“a solitary cell with only a screen, and on that screen for at least five years of his life, every day and every night, there should be pictures of his victims, one after the other after the other, all the time a voice saying, ‘Look what you have done to this old lady, look what you have done to that child, look what you have done,’ nothing else.”
Neither of which fits within the confines of the law or the jurisdiction of the judicial system.
So, how much is this going to cost?
Estimates range from $30,000 – $50,000 per year of taxpayer money. Now before you go and complain, consider this…
Financial costs to taxpayers of capital punishment is several times that of keeping someone in prison for life. Most people don’t realize that carrying out one death sentence costs 2-5 times more than keeping that same criminal in prison for the rest of his life. How can this be? It has to do with the endless appeals, additional required procedures, and legal wrangling that drag the process out. It’s not unusual for a prisoner to be on death row for 15-20 years. Judges, attorneys, court reporters, clerks, and court facilities all require a substantial investment by the taxpayers.
Amazingly enough, it seems the government got this one (financially speaking)right.
Unfortunately it does not bring back all the millions already lost by his victims.
Fumbled Returns 