March 12: Madoff in Chains

Bernard Madoff was handcuffed and remanded to prison on this date in 2009 after pleading guilty for his multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme. Among the heaviest losers among his large network of Jewish investors were Yeshiva University, $110 million; Hadassah, $90 million; the Shapiro Family Foundation of Boston, $145 million; American Technion, $72 million; Chais Family Foundation, $178 million; the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, $15 million; and numerous other Jewish family foundations, federations and charitable institutions, with losses totaling close to $1 billion. On June 29, 2009, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison.

“[T]he whole new regulatory reform is a joke. The whole government is a Ponzi scheme.” —Bernard Madoff