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Pick A Number: What does Madoff get?

By David Feige

Thanks to the promptings of my friend Randy, I've been thinking about the Madoff sentencing...Here's the problem as I see it. The magnitude of his crimes are virtually unprecedented, and his lifespan is quite short, so in truth I think that almost all of these discussions are academic. The question then becomes, if a 13 year sentence is functionally the same as a 150 year sentence, it seems you can basically buy some deterrent value with very little personal cost. Now that said, I think the judge will be sensitive to seeming absurd or seeming to overtly pander, so my guess is he'll impose a sentence consistent with Madoff being a young guy. Say something around 600 months (or 50 years) Maybe a touch more. If there were a betting pool, I'd put my money on 56 years...continue to full post

Full post as published by Indefensible on June 27, 2009 (boomark / email).