(Op-Ed) Sympathy for The Devil: A Defense of Bernie Madoff

by Patrick Tine

Ramzi Yousef, 1993 World Trade Center bomber, Theodore Kaczynski, mail bomber who killed three people, Robert Hannsen, former FBI agent convicted of selling US secrets to the Soviet Union and Russia. What do these three people and Bernie Madoff have in common? They are all serving life sentences for crimes they have committed. Does anyone else find this a bit unfair? While Bernard Madoff is responsible for the greatest fraud in American history, perhaps of all time, he does not deserve to spend the rest of his life in prison. Simply put, a man who has never physically harmed another human being or committed treason does not deserve the second harshest punishment our nation employs.

Bernard Madoff ran a $50 billion investment scheme that bilked hundreds of investors and non-profit institutions out of millions of dollars. To be sure, lives have been ruined and important groups now lack the necessary funds to continue operating. He lured investors with promises of remarkable returns on their investments regardless of market conditions. Nobody questioned his integrity as Mr. Madoff, a former president of the Nasdaq, was thoroughly entrenched in the Wall Street establishment. Then, on December 22, 2008, his two sons and business partners turned their father over to the police. His whole career had been a fraud.

As of today, Bernard Madoff is a leading candidate for “most hated man in America.” It seems that Madoff admitted his guilt not only because it was the responsible thing to do but also because it would be impossible to find an impartial jury to try him. It seems as if people are taking their economic frustrations out on one, completely unrelated individual.

Mr. Madoff is a criminal, let there be no doubt about that. However, his misdeeds were committed on paper, behind a desk in an office building. To compare what he did, no matter how brutal it seems, to acts of terrorism, murder, or treason is an overreaction. It will certainly not be easy, but lives can be rebuilt and foundations can be restored.

It seems to be all the rage in Washington for politicians, regardless of party, to score cheap points through false populism. Hearings are underway to find out how such a large scheme could have gone undetected for so long. The truth of the matter being, nobody in authority wanted to detect it. The Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department had been receiving tips about a possible Madoff Ponzi scheme as early as 1999 and chose not to act. The federal government simply could not fathom such a fraud and chose instead to let the good times continue to roll in the midst of a booming economy. The fact that the government did not catch Madoff comes as no surprise after decades of deregulation of the financial markets. How could the SEC have caught a slick fraudster like Bernie Madoff when it didn’t even realize the perils of banks selling mortgages to people who obviously did not have the means to pay them back?

Madoff, no matter how large his crimes are, is only one in a large cast of the financial guilty each deserving our individual scorn. Why aren’t the executives and politicians who essentially conned an entire nation out of its financial security being indicted and tried? Truly though, who benefits if Bernard Madoff goes to jail for the rest of his life? Certainly not the taxpayers who will be footing the bill for his incarceration. It couldn’t possibly be the victims of his crimes, who will probably never be adequately remunerated for the money they have lost. Putting Bernard Madoff in prison for the rest of his life will not take a dangerous criminal off the streets and his chance of recidivism is zero. Bernard Madoff is neither a murderer nor a traitor and does not deserve to be treated as such.