Madoff sentenced to 150 years

Business News: Victims express disgust at 90-minute hearing -- Bernard Madoff, mastermind of the elaborate Ponzi scheme that ensnared showbiz figures including Steven Spielberg, was sentenced to the maximum of 150 years in prison Monday. At the morning hearing, Judge Denny Chin threw the book at the former financier, who bilked thousands of former clients out of pensions, retirement funds, endowments and other investments to the tune of at least $13 billion -- and possibly as much as $65 billion. Chin, who had been urged by the defense to hand down a shorter sentence of 12 years, noted that no one had come forward as a character witness for the defendant, calling that fact "telling." "I have a sense Mr. Madoff has not done all that he could do, or told all that he knows," Chin said. The list of Madoff's victims includes Spielberg and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, both of whom founded charities that invested donors' money with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities -- then seen as a solid, conservative ... (link)