Monday, June 29, 2009

The Madoff case

The news is out - Bernie Madoff, who probably created the world's biggest Ponzi scheme, has been sentenced to 150 years jail. It is unlikely that he would even serve 1/5 of that sentence, but with advances in medical science, you never know how long human life expectancies will increase.

Madoff's sentence for his fraud involving perhaps only US$13 billion in monies actually invested with his funds (not US$50 billion claimed by him) is the longest ever awarded by a US court.

In Singapore, on the other hand, the records for the longest sentence for commercial crime and the longest non-life sentence was formerly found in the case of SIA ex-employee Teo Cheng Kiat who was sentenced to 24 years jail. These records are now held by Chia Teck Leng who swindled banks of $117 million while he was finance manager of Asia Pacific Breweries. He was sentenced to 42 years jail in 2004.

If he behaves himself, he can get 1/3 time off for good behaviour, meaning that his sentence might only be 28 years, and he could be out in the year 2032.

No comments:

Post a Comment