I can't pretend to have read Dante's Divine Comedy. I do know that, in it, the author offers a vision of hell -- the Inferno -- that's organized like a parking garage. Each descending level is reserved for a different class of wrongdoers. Circle 2, for example, is reserved for the lustful. Circle 3 for the gluttonous. Circle 7 for the violent. Circle 8 is for sorcerers, hypocrites, frauds and deceivers, like Bernie Madoff. Circle 9 is for those for betray their friends. Oh right, like Bernie Madoff.
Circle 9 is as low as one can go.
Later today, Bernie Madoff will learn of his sentence at a courthouse on Pearl Street in NYC. Much of the drama has gone out of the event -- the judge has aleady entered a forfeiture order for $170 billion. None of the Madoff family is expected to be in court.
Still, the sentencing will be a spectacle. Victim allocution will take up much of the day.
Some victims, like Ruth Madoff's sister Joan (now bankrupt in Florida), have said "pffft" to Bernie and won't be in the courtrom. Other victims wasted no time in signing up to be heard. They are a colorful group -- a concert promoter; a politician; a model; a long-time friend of the Madoff family; a middle-aged mom with both a teenager and aging parents now dependent on her; a former Madoff employee who lost his job and his reputation overnight. It is fair to say some combination of rage, fear, vanity, pain, and a sense of the historical moment drive these people to speak to the court. For some, the experience will be as defining as the fact and magnitude of their loss.
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1. Posted by Christine on June 29, 2009 @ 13:11 | Permalink
I think this is a great opening, Jayne. What is so evil about Madoff is that he wasn't a con man duping strangers or a thief robbing strangers. He looked people he knew (and many that he professed to care about) in the eye and took their money, knowing he would not hold it in trust for them. The concept of fiduciary duty has come to be the watered-down, nebulous term we apply to what corporate directors and officers owe nameless shareholders, who turn over completely within a year. However, the concept is perfectly meant to apply to situations like this, where a man looks you in the eye and says to trust him with your money. Even Dante recognized that this sort of betrayal was the worst.
2. Posted by bankruptcy attorney phoenix on February 2, 2012 @ 22:27 | Permalink
What Madoff did should never go unnoticed. I hope justice is served to these poor victims.
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