Legal News

One Year Later: A Glimpse At Bernie?s Life Behind Bars

By Ashby Jones

It sort of feels like the name Bernie Madoff has been a household one for about two decades. Hard to believe he’s only been gracing headlines for one year.

But what a year it’s been. Twelve months ago, Madoff was still running his investment shop, still living with Ruth in his posh Upper East Side apartment, still gracing events in bespoke suits, still jetting off on exotic vacations whenever he felt so moved.

Today, as WSJ reporter Dionne Searcey writes, Madoff is inmate no. 61727-054 in the medium-security federal prison in Butner, N.C. Searcey, in her story today, gives a good glimpse into what his life is like behind bars and prison wire. She writes:

Inmate No. 61727-054 shares an unlocked cell at the medium-security prison at Butner Federal Correctional Complex with a younger man named Frank. He wears khaki prison garb and has been spotted walking on an outdoor track. He plays bocce, chess and checkers. He scrubs pots and pans in the prison kitchen. . . .

The 71-year-old Mr. Madoff also is salvaging something that disappeared in the outside world the moment his fraud was exposed: respect. “To every con artist, he is the godfather, the don,” says an inmate interviewed earlier this week.

Shortly after arriving at Butner in July, reports Searcey, Madoff told Nancy Fineman, who represented investors in a suit against his wife, that he was fending off inmates who wanted to make a buck off his notoriety. “People wanted his signature because they wanted to sell it on eBay, so he wouldn’t sign anything,” she says.

Some of Madoff’s fellow inmates suspect he has money hidden somewhere and try to cozy up to him in hopes of learning its location. But correctional officers keep a close watch on Madoff and don’t allow groups to crowd around him.

“He looks like the rest of us doing time,” says the inmate who asked not to be identified. “He just acts like a normal guy.”

One of our favorite anecdotes in the story concerns the above photo. Kenneth Calvin “K.C.” White, whose prison sentence in Butner for bank robbery overlapped with Madoff’s for several weeks this summer, says he met him in the line where inmates await medication.

White is an artist who painted several murals throughout the prison. Madoff struck up a conversation, saying: “You’re the guy who does all the pictures around here,” White recalls.

According to White, Madoff chatted about the fraud’s aftermath, claiming he “carried” employees at Bernard L. Madoff Securities LLC for more than two decades, yet wound up with an astronomical prison sentence. “I guess he felt they turned their back on him,” White says.

Still, Madoff seemed proud, walking around the prison with his head held high. “He carried on like he’d been doing time for years,” White says.

Madoff asked White to paint his portrait, so the bank robber drew a fast sketch in the prison paint shop in which Madoff worked at the time, according to White.

Madoff told White he didn’t want to be depicted in his prison khakis, White says, so he drew him in a suit and tie.

Photo: Philly.com

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 11, 2009 (boomark / email).