House arrest. You can bet that if you had embezzled $5000 from your company, you wouldn't be under house arrest... you'd be in a cell while the acountants examined the books.
That smug look on his face as he languidly strolled from the courthouse to his penthouse with an ankle monitor----smirking as if to say," I'm a filthy rich crook and you peons can't do a damn thing about it."
Watching news clips of sincere, winsome, doe-eyed Madoff pontificating on why investors do not understand his "strategy," is a case study in the criminal use of gravitas.