Bernie Madoff

His father was a plumber who also worked as a stockbroker, and the family moved from Brooklyn out to Laurelton in Queens. Madoff went to Far Rockaway High School, where friends remembered a thin, sociable boy who hung around the community center and ate ice cream at the five-and-ten, and where he met Ruth Alpern. He spent a year at the University of Alabama, transferred, and took a political science degree from Hofstra in 1960. He started Brooklyn Law School and quit after the first year. The 5,000 dollars he had saved lifeguarding and installing lawn sprinklers became Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, together with 50,000 borrowed from Ruth's father, an accountant who also supplied the firm's first customers: his own friends and their families.

The legitimate half was real, and inventive. To compete with brokers on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, his firm pushed its quotes out electronically, and the technology it helped develop became Nasdaq, which he later chaired. He was the first prominent user of payment for order flow, paying brokers for the right to execute their customers' trades, a practice critics called a legal kickback and Madoff compared to a hosiery maker paying for supermarket rack space. By 2008 his firm was the sixth-largest market maker in S&P 500 stocks. The other half, the advisory arm he kept quiet and exclusive, put client money into a Chase account and paid old investors out of new deposits. He dated it to the early 1990s. One of his traders testified he had been faking records since the 1970s.

Harry Markopolos worked out in four minutes that the returns were impossible and spent four hours proving it, then took the proof to the SEC in 2000 and 2001 and again in 2005 and 2007. Nothing happened. No major Wall Street house invested and no major derivatives firm would trade with him, because the numbers were not believable, and the whole operation was audited by a three-person outfit with one working accountant. When redemption requests hit seven billion dollars in late 2008, the Chase account had fallen from 5.5 billion in midyear to 234 million. On December 10 he told his sons the advisory business was one big lie. They walked out and called a lawyer, who called federal prosecutors. He pleaded guilty to 11 felonies without a bargain, named nobody, and took 150 years.

Mark Madoff hanged himself on December 11, 2010, two years to the day after the arrest. Andrew died of lymphoma in 2014. Ruth gave up a claim on 85 million dollars and kept 2.5 million. His brother Peter got 10 years. Madoff asked Donald Trump for a reduced sentence in 2019 and asked a judge for compassionate release in 2020 with terminal kidney failure, and was refused both. He died at the Butner prison medical center on April 14, 2021, at 82. He was cremated, against Jewish custom, and no one claimed the ashes, still in a lawyer's office in 2023. The trustee has recovered about 14.8 billion dollars of an estimated 18 billion in direct losses.

Bernie Madoff's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities company
  A penny-stock broker-dealer that became the sixth-largest market maker in S&P 500 stocks 1960
• Nasdaq company
  His firm helped build the electronic quotation system. He later chaired the exchange. 1971
• The advisory arm other
  The date Madoff gave for the start of the fraud. A trader testified he had faked records since the 1970s. 1991
• United States v. Madoff case
  Eleven felony counts, a guilty plea with no bargain, and the maximum sentence 2009

• 1956 aged ~18 Graduates from Far Rockaway High School in Queens
• November 28, 1959 aged 21 Marries Ruth Alpern Her father, an accountant, lent the seed money and brought the first clients.
• 1960 aged ~22 Founds Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities with 5,000 dollars
• 1999 aged ~61 Harry Markopolos tells the SEC the returns are mathematically impossible He brought it back to the SEC in 2000, 2001, 2005 and 2007.
• December 10, 2008 aged 70 Tells his sons the advisory business is one big lie They left the apartment and contacted a lawyer, who called federal prosecutors.
• December 11, 2008 aged 70 Arrested and charged with securities fraud
• June 29, 2009 aged 71 Sentenced to 150 years by Judge Denny Chin His projected release date was recorded as January 31, 2137.
• December 11, 2010 aged 72 His son Mark hangs himself, two years to the day after the arrest
• April 14, 2021 aged 82 Dies at the Butner prison medical center at 82 Hypertension, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and chronic kidney disease.

• Steven Spielberg b. 1946
  Director and producer whose blockbusters and dramas have defined American cinema for five decades. defrauded his foundation
• Donald Trump b. 1946
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• Elizabeth Holmes b. 1984
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• Martha Stewart b. 1941
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