Who is to blame for the financial crisis our country is currently in? Is there any one man or woman who can be found at fault? Bernie Madoff cannot be cited for most of the blame at hand but he can certainly be held accountable for the role he played. Madoff and many people who work with him were arrested and charged with several felony accounts, which range from embezzlement, perjury and securities fraud. When the smoke cleared and everything was settled, Madoff’s great scheme made his own son take his life, left him in prison for over 150 years and for those who actually made money, they have been sued to help pay off the people who have lost money.
Mark Madoff and brother Andrew worked on a trading desk at the firm, on a side of the business that was not directly related to the Ponzi scheme. Mark found out about his fathers investing fraud the day before his father, Bernie, was arrested. For almost two years he was struggled with what his father had done. It seemed that the amount stress from his father’s case was too much for him. A family friend stated, “The intense scrutiny approaching the anniversary became too much for him” (Hays & Long). For two years Mark Madoff had to live with being the son of the most disgraced financier ever. On the anniversary of his fathers arrest he took his own life by hanging himself in the living room of his loft.
International money laundering, securities fraud, mail and wire fraud, these are just some of the things that Bernie Madoff has been given time in prison for. After all the charges were brought against him, 150 years of prison time is what was waiting for Madoff. People asked if giving him that big of a sentence was warranted for his actions, the answer for most is quite simply, yes. Some victims described him “as a psychopath and a monster who had destroyed their lives” (Henriques). Madoff ran the largest, longest and most widespread Ponzi scheme in history; he made a living, for 15 to 20 years, taking peoples...