Elie Wiesel's Proposed Punishment for Bernie Madoff

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mimivan

Thu, Mar 12 2009, 10:34 am

Asked what punishment he would like to see for Mr. Madoff, Mr. Wiesel said: “I would like him to be in a solitary cell with only a screen, and on that screen for at least five years of his life, every day and every night, there should be pictures of his victims, one after the other after the other, all the time a voice saying, ‘Look what you have done to this old lady, look what you have done to that child, look what you have done,’ nothing else.”

louche

Thu, Mar 12 2009, 11:05 am

Beautiful! They'd probably nix that as being "cruel and unusual," but absolutely what he deserves.

Thu, Mar 12 2009, 11:55 am

Am I the only one who does not think he is as bad as he is being made out to be.

He did steal a lot of money but he is not a murderer. What he did was wrong and he should be punished, but he is not the devil he is being made out to be. He has acted more honorable than most in his situation. He has admitted his wrongdoings and plead guilty, and is not making the government spend untold amounts of money to put him on trial. Most public/rich men who are accused of crimes deny it until there is no other choice, and even then they claim to be innocent or misunderstood (ie Blagoyavich and Clinton)
The fact that his sons turned him in is another thing we have to respect about him. While he didnt live up to the Jewish moral code we believe in, he did bring up his children to do the right thing even though it must have hurt them greatly to do so.

I feel bad for his victims and I believe that he should pay for his crimes, I just dont think that he deserves any worse treatment than any other white collar criminal gets.

freidasima

Thu, Mar 12 2009, 12:02 pm

1) What he did was a chillul hashem because he is a Jew.
2) what he did is having and will have repercussions on the Jewish world for years if not decades. He is going to be responsible for many religious learning institutions and other such institutions going under. In other words he is destroying Jewish learning and much of the Jewish future.
3) he may have not killed with a knife but I want to see how many people's health is affected by what happened and will chas vesholom cause them to be ill or worse. There are many ways of killing people.

If he went "quietly"...believe me, there is a reason. A deal, trying to protect someone, etc.
I would love to see Elie Wiesel's proposed punishment for much worse crimes. He has imagination.

louche

Thu, Mar 12 2009, 12:32 pm

To add to what Freidasima said, IIRC at least one person already committed suicide because Madoff wiped him out.

And Madoff's family is now being investigated and charges may be brought against them, too.

Raisin

Thu, Mar 12 2009, 12:39 pm

someone told me when the fbi started investigating, he told them, don't look into this, there are more schemes like this out there and the whole world will collapse.

I think he only gave himself in when he saw the game was up anyway. (because people started taking out their money)

he ruined his own sister! she also lost her money with him. how low can someone go.

chaylizi

Thu, Mar 12 2009, 12:41 pm

I've heard a theory that his sons turned him in because he told them too, to avoid having his whole family go down with him. how could his top execs not know about his scheme? his whole business was a sham.

I think he did a terrible thing. to cause a chillul hashem is absolutely the very worst.

Thu, Mar 12 2009, 12:47 pm

freidasima wrote:

I do not mean to imply that what he did will wreak havoc on many lives and institutions or that what he did was in any way excusable. It just seems to me that he is being vilified disproportionately to his crimes. I realize that Elie Wiesel was hurt by Madoff, but it was a white color crime, and we do not put others who steal and defraud in solitary.

If he is protecting someone well I still think it is better than the others that get up and say they didnt lie/cheat/steal/ or have s@x with that woman- only to later admit to it. And if he is protecting someone its more likely loved ones or underlings, as he is more than likely the mastermind in the scandal. I would have less respect if it was like the mafia where the lower level guys are protecting the big guys. And even less respect if he gave up his employees who might have known about it but felt they had no choice bec he is the boss.

If I understand correctly the amount of actual money lost (capital) was much smaller than reported. The bulk of the lost money was the extremely high profits he was saying he earned for his clients. While I feel terrible that they lost the money I am not sure it warrants any more pain than other losses that people are feeling now with the economy. This part of me feel a little less sorry for the folk, kind of how I feel for some people with their houses. I know people who are bemoaning the fact that they are loosing money cause the houseing prices dropped, well they bought their houses in the 80's for normal price, then if they would have sold it 5 years ago they could have made a killing but now they cant, its not a loss its just not the gain they had imagined it would be. I hope these people can get their capital back, but any losses are really just the risk you take with investing. Many of them would have been realising losses the whole time if they were using any other investment firms. No one else was recording profits - and it should have been a red flag to everyone.

And what about this moral question, if you were one of the people who recently withdrew your money from a madoff fund before he was caught you would have taken your capital and the inflated (fake) profits - should you be required to return it to general fund for all the victims?
If you have been withdrawing your dividends throughout the years, do you deserve the same amount in reparations that someone who has always reinvested the dividends?

And if you took all of madoff's personal and family wealth and were to redistribute it to the victims, should they get more than the capital they invested?

Investors take risks and they should be market driven risks. But even though they are losses due to fraud, should they be rewarded any more money than if they would have been investing with someone else.

Thu, Mar 12 2009, 12:54 pm

I guess I should reiterate, what he did was horrible, and an embarrassing chillul Hashem... I dont mean to make it seem like it was not a crime. But in this climate many top financial people are doing things that have made others loose their life savings. There are many people wiped out because of perfectly legal total financial flops. So I cannot put the blame for this mans suicide on Maddoff - It could have happened if this man lost all his money in some other financial ruin - thats where the mantra for diversification comes in.

Barbara

Thu, Mar 12 2009, 1:25 pm

kikavu wrote:

The rumor is that he was about to get caught anyway (clearly, as people were asking for their money, which did not exist), and he agreed to take the fall FOR his sons, who (according to the rumor) were well aware of the plan.

No, he's not a murderer. But he wiped out the savings of a good many people (including Mr. Weisel's personal assets) as well as many charities, schools and other institutions. He hurt thousands, perhaps 10s of 1000s, of people.

He's a thief, pure and simple. I'm not wasting any sympathy on him.

Barbara

Thu, Mar 12 2009, 1:27 pm

JC wrote:

AIUI, at least one financial advisor in Manhattan committed suicide because he had advised clients to invest with Madoff, and could not bare the guilt of having caused others to have lost their savings.

sarahd

Thu, Mar 12 2009, 4:32 pm

JC wrote:

If I understand correctly the amount of actual money lost (capital) was much smaller than reported. The bulk of the lost money was the extremely high profits he was saying he earned for his clients.

Yes, it was "only" about $17 billion, not $50 billion. Someone remarked that the man is a true genius - he managed to get people to believe that $17 billion (that's $17,000,000,000!!!!) is "not so much" money.

Raisin

Thu, Mar 12 2009, 4:47 pm

Barbara wrote:

JC wrote:

I can't understand how madoff is living with this guilt. he must have no feelings whatsoever. and he stole from all of us. even if we didn't personally invest money with him, all the schools, shuls and tzedaka orginisations which have now lost so much will not be able to provide the same services as before.

Thu, Mar 12 2009, 5:05 pm

Raisin wrote:

Do you think that unless he commits suicide he cant feel guilty about what he did?

I am not defending what he did, but there are a few ways to respond to having done something terrible... one is to deny it and claim to be misunderstood, or that it was someone else s fault, or to be smug and say see if you can prove it, or to say its not as bad is it seems. Thats the way most of the people who have been stealing our money have usually acted. He is admiting his wrong doings and should be punished for it, but that doesnt mean that he is cold hearted.

BTW I have NO connection to him in any way, dont even know people who know people who know him. And I believe in being tough on crime, but I dont think he should be more villified than any other con artist who rips people off. Just cause his victims are/were the very filthy rich doesnt make him worse than a con artist who rips of the regular folks.

Apple pie

Thu, Mar 12 2009, 5:08 pm

The thing is that many people were NOT aware that their money were invested with Madoff...
So you cannot blame them for investing and not seeing red flags etc...

Raisin

Thu, Mar 12 2009, 5:11 pm

well, he could have stopped what he was doing. even under house arrest he was sending large somes of money to his relatives. not much remorse there it seems. maybe I missed it, but has he apologised, ever, to his victims?

and I don't think crime is somehow ok becasue it is white coller. stealing is stealing. losing clients money because you are stupid is one thing, but what he did is just beyond belief.

Apple pie

Thu, Mar 12 2009, 5:11 pm

Quote:

Just cause his victims are/were the very filthy rich doesnt make him worse than a con artist who rips of the regular folks.

Charities, foundations... these are the filthy rich people?
There also middle class people who lost money indirectly...

Raisin

Thu, Mar 12 2009, 5:12 pm

he didn't just steal from the rich. he stole from yeshiva university, plus some Jewish day schools. who do you think will lose out? poor parents who can't afford the fees and will not be getting scholarships now.

Atali

Thu, Mar 12 2009, 6:18 pm

Madoff Would Face Worse Punishments in Other Countries

Thursday, March 12, 2009
By Joseph Abrams

Bernard Madoff may be the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.

The world's greatest scammer is 70 years old and facing up to 150 years in prison for his $50 billion swindle, but it could have been worse — much, much worse — if he'd committed his crimes in some other countries.

You literally have to hand it to the Saudis, whose strict application of Islamic Shariah law would leave Madoff missing more than his freedom.

"For stealing in Saudi Arabia they cut your hands off," said Rachel Ehrenfeld, director of the American Center for Democracy. "Whether the Shariah court would decide that he stole so much money that he gets a stoning is up to them, but the general penalty for stealing is cutting his hands off."

Looking east, Madoff's fortunes wouldn't be much brighter. In China, "anything is possible," said Gordon Chang, author of "The Coming Collapse of China" and a veteran watcher of the country's legal and political system.

"In China the death penalty is used for all sorts of crimes that we would consider to be minor. In the U.S. you get the death penalty only for murder; in China you can get the death penalty for stealing money ... or doing anything considered a threat to the state."

Questions of guilt or innocence there are entirely political, Chang said. Backroom bartering determines who gets incarcerated and who faces punishment, as lobbying and influence-peddling take the place of a functioning legal system.

"A number of Chinese business people have been sentenced to death for crimes that pale in comparison to what Madoff did," said Arch Puddington, director of research at Freedom House.

Puddington said political problems also beset the Russian legal system, Madoff's sentence would be a stark one if he fell out of favor with the ruling majority.

"They tend to send the most important prisoners to Siberia, to the far east in Russia, to prisons that are pretty awful," Puddington told FOXNews.com. "Prisons are rougher in Russia, you can imagine, than they are here."

Madoff told a U.S. district court Thursday that he was "deeply sorry" for defrauding thousands of investors of their life savings, but probably not as sorry as he might be if he'd spent his whole life in Japan, according to Miles Fletcher, a professor of Japanese history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

"Sometimes in cases like this where there's a strong sense of a personal failure and betraying the group and the group's welfare, someone might commit suicide, having dishonored himself," Fletcher told FOXNews.com.

Madoff, who may never see the light of day again, should be counting his lucky stars.

mimivan

Fri, Mar 13 2009, 2:45 am

JC wrote:

Let's just say his sons didn't know about the scheme and turned him in in earnest..maybe he doesn't deserve the credit...maybe behind the mesirus nefesh of these boys was a great Jewish mother Wink

Same thing with Korach, no? His sons did teshuvah...and it didn't have much to do with him...

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