Citing Cooperation, Madoff's Attorneys Seek 12-Year Sentence

Attorneys for Bernard L. Madoff, who confessed to running a $65 billion Ponzi scheme, have asked a federal judge to show him leniency at sentencing, citing cooperation with federal officials.

Madoff, 71, faces up to 150 years in prison when he is sentenced June 29. He pleaded guilty in March to a massive fraud, in which he paid off old investors with money from new clients. In the weeks before the fraud came to light, his clients were told they had as much as $65 billion.

"We seek neither mercy nor sympathy," defense attorney Ira Sorkin wrote in a letter filed yesterday in Manhattan federal court. "Respectfully, we seek the justice and objectivity that have been -- and we hope always will be -- the bedrock of our criminal justice system." .....

Prosecutors have identified 1,341 Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities account holders who collectively lost more than $13 billion. .....

Sorkin said Madoff has sought to help investigators recover assets. He has supplied information, reviewed records, transferred assets and agreed to speak to other regulators, he said.

Madoff had met with the SEC's inspector general about "the role of the SEC in connection with its examination" of his business, Sorkin said. .....

First time that I've read that Madoff had met with the SEC's inspector general about "the role of the SEC in connection with its examination" of his business...

However, from other sources, it seems that he actually did not cooperate much with the investigation beyond "meeting" the investigators. Possibly because he doesn't have much to look forward to, and the life sentence is not the worst outcome.

But here's this: Madoff’s Failure to Name Accomplices Cripples His Leniency Bid - BL, June 26, 2009 Bernard Madoff’s bid for a 12-year sentence will probably be stymied by his failure to tell U.S. government investigators about those who may have helped him defraud investors of as much as $65 billion.
Madoff faces as many as 150 years in jail when he comes before U.S. District Judge Denny Chin in Manhattan on June 29 for sentencing. Probation officials have recommended Madoff spend the rest of his life in prison. Instead, Madoff asked Chin last week for a sentence that’s half that meted out to the convicted chief executives of Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc.
Since his Dec. 11 arrest, Madoff, 71, has insisted he acted alone in the largest-ever Ponzi scheme. He took sole responsibility for the fraud when U.S. agents arrested him in December and in his March 12 guilty plea. In a letter this week to Chin, Madoff’s attorney, Ira Sorkin, argued his client has told investigators about his assets and how he duped regulators. Sorkin said nothing about Madoff’s accomplices.
White-collar defense lawyers such as George Jackson, a former federal prosecutor now at Bryan Cave LLP in Chicago, said the judge will be deterred by Madoff’s silence on this issue as he weighs the ex-money manager’s request. .....

There are other differences. Current Fed Chairmen did not design the system. And the pyramid schemes are mostly programs like Social Security and government entitlement programs that have nothing to do with Federal Reserve.

But taken on a scale against the government largess, you are correct - Bernie is “small potatoes”.

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