Bernie Madoff Has Died

Just over 12 years after he was jailed for the largest ponzi scheme fraud ever, AP reports that Bernie Madoff has died in a federal prison, believed to be from natural causes.

Timeline: Key dates in the Bernard Madoff case

1980s

Bernard Madoff, a renowned Wall Street trader, initiates a scheme to defraud his investment clients. He eventually accepts billions of dollars from individual investors, charitable organisations, pension funds, hedge funds, and others. He claims that his sophisticated trading and hedging strategy will produce investment gains in all market conditions, though securities regulators later say he never traded any shares for client accounts.

May 2000

Massachusetts financial analyst Harry Markopolos tries to alert financial regulators to Madoff’s fraud, saying his alleged trading strategy could never yield such continuously positive returns. The US securities and exchange commission ignores his warning several more times over the next few years.

25 November 2008

Ruth Madoff withdraws $5.5m from a Madoff-linked brokerage firm. She withdraws another $10m on 10 December.

Early December 2008

Bernard Madoff tells a senior employee of his investment firm that clients had requested $7bn in redemptions, and he was having trouble coming up with the cash to fulfil the withdrawals.

Madoff tells his sons that the business was “all just one big lie” and “basically, a giant Ponzi scheme”. He estimates the fraud to be $50bn. Prosecutors later allege that the combined balance on client statements was approximately $64.8bn.

11 December 2008

Madoff surrenders to authorities, saying “there is no innocent explanation”. Madoff is freed on a $10m bond. Federal prosecutors eventually charge him with fraud, international money laundering, lying to federal securities regulators, and other counts.

12 December 2008

A federal judge freezes Madoff’s assets.

15 December 2008

A federal judge appoints a trustee to find funds to restore to Madoff’s victims, who number roughly 4,800 in the US and abroad.

17 December 2008

Madoff’s wife surrenders her passport. He is confined to his luxurious $7m Manhattan apartment and ordered to wear an electronic tag after failing to find anyone outside his family willing to guarantee his $10m bail.

23 December 2008

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French hedge fund manager Thierry de la Villehuchet is found dead in an apparent suicide. His company Access International Advisers lost as much as $1.4bn of its clients’ money in Madoff’s scam.

5 January 2009

Prosecutors reveal Madoff distributed $1m worth of jewelry and personal possessions to friends and relatives. Prosecutors say he violated an order freezing his assets.

8 January 2009

Prosecutors reveal Madoff had $173m in signed cheques in his desk when he was arrested, which they argue show he sought to keep assets from fleeced investors. Prosecutors ask Judge Ronald Ellis to send Madoff to jail; Ellis declines.

12 January 2009

Madoff avoids jail when judge rules he can stay in his $7m apartment but must submit to mail searches.

15 January 2009

Financial services regulators say no evidence exists that Madoff ever traded a single share on behalf of his investment clients, in more than 40 years of examining his books.

12 March 2009

Madoff jailed after pleading guilty to all 11 charges against him.

14 March 2009

Madoff appeals for bail and reveals his wife’s huge fortune.

16 March 2009

US authorities to seize $69m of assets held in Ruth Madoff’s name, including a Manhattan penthouse and $17m bank account

18 March 2009

Madoff accountant, David Friehling, charged with fraud as prosecutors claim he helped deceive investors by rubber-stamping accounts for 17 years.

11 June 2009

Madoff fraud victim, William Foxton, 65, killed himself amid claims he was unable to face the shame of losing his family savings through the Ponzi scheme.

16 June 2009

More than 100 former clients who lost money in Madoff’s Ponzi scheme outline the devastation wreaked on their lives in statements to the judge conducting the case.

29 June 2009

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Madoff sentenced to 150 years in prison. He said he has left “a legacy of shame”, while victims applaud the maximum sentence.

29 July 2009

Madoff tells a lawyer that he was “amazed that he got away with it” for so long and thought several times when meeting SEC officials that “they got me”.

2 April 2010

Actor John Malkovich seeks to recover $2.3m he lost in Madoff’s firm.

25 November 2010

A trustee for Madoff’s victims launches legal action against UBS for “enabling” the fraud. Goes on to sue JP Morgan and HSBC.

11 December 2010

Mark Madoff, Bernard’s son, is found dead in his apartment on the second anniversary of his father’s arrest.

16 February 2011

Madoff tells his biographer that banks knew he was committing fraud but chose not to do anything about it.

14 April 2021

Madoff dies.

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