The 71-year old Bernard Madoff isn’t going to appeal his 150-year sentence, it turns out.
“We won’t be appealing the sentence,” Madoff’s lawyer, Ira Sorkin, said Thursday. He declined to say why the decision was made.
How about the fact that a successful appeal could well get the sentence cut, I don’t know, maybe in half?
Maybe even by two-thirds?
Yeah. Would not have been the brightest use of stolen money.
(More on sentences of this nature at Colin Samuels’ new blog, by the way.)
Cross-posted on Likelihood of Success.
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At his age even 20 years is likely a life sentence. It would be a waste of money.
This is not as good news as it seems. What it means is that prosecutors now have zero leverage with him in identifying who else was involved and what actually happened to the billions and billions of dollars of lost money. This decision not to appeal was not about Bernie Madoff, it was about protecting his family and his cronies.
What could they have realistically offered him? Better facilities maybe but that’s it.
Maybe letting him sit with some murdering thugs for awhile might soften him up but I don’t see what prosecutors could really give a 71-year-old man looking at life any way you cut it.
Well, it’s a difficult balance. You give a man no hope, and you lose any chance of cooperation. That’s why you see sentences that “don’t make sense” sometimes. Because the prosecutors have other things they are trying to accomplish.
I think they messed up by throwing the book at him for symbolic purposes. It is unlikely now that other truly guilty parties will be punished.
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