SEC: Madoff Banned From Working Again

Agreement Is A Formality; Victims Flood Judge With Letters In Effort To Influence Sentencing

(CBS)  The Securities and Exchange Commission reached a settlement with Bernard Madoff today that will keep him from ever working again in the securities industry.

Of course, that's just a formality, given that Madoff is currently in prison and may spend much of the rest of his life there. His sentencing for running a more than $60 billion Ponzi scheme is scheduled for the end of the month.

Now Madoff's victims are speaking out and trying to influence that sentencing, reports CBS News correspondent Jeff Glor.

The judge deciding Madoff's sentence was flooded with the e-mails and letters - 113 tales of devastating loss.

Heart wrenching stories like Kathleen Bignell's of Gunnison, Colo., who wrote, "I told my father (89) he could not die because I didn't have enough money to bury him."

Others who lost a lifetime of savings called Madoff a "bastard" and "scum." Richard Shapiro said he felt "economically raped" "sentenced to a life devoid of our life savings."

Calls for punishment were unanimous - insisting on the maximum sentence, no less. CBS News caught up with Madoff's wife Ruth, after visiting her husband in jail.

"I have no comments at this time on any subject," she said.

Read more from CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian.

[scott1943]

There are some on capital hill,that need to join Bernie for the finacial atrosities they are allowing!

[YacktyYack]

Did the SEC make the announcement at a Celebrity Dinner at the Manhattan Detention Center? The smell from this onion won't go away until Bernie and the rest of the criminals bilking Americans are tried and sentenced like they're armed bank robbers... Make the punishment fit the crime. Government Regulators who don't do their jobs should be given same sentences. It shouldn't be our responsibility to prove them guilty but theirs to prove to us that they did their job, didn't look the other way, that were shammed by the shammers. Short of that, they're guilty.

If the SEC was doing its job alot of this could be avoided. But we all have our heros, I suppose. History records Wall Street moguls as opposing criminalizing Insider Trading in the 1930's... Just a little information between social equals. A perk. How many trillions were put in the pockets of the insiders while maintaining the sham of an open and honest exchange?

Deregulating oversight of the Financial industry was a concerted eighteen year effort. We're now reaping the rewards the graft and corruption those years of Republican power provided us. Bernie's just the tip of the ice sculpture. He got caught because he couldn't hide it anymore. We don't want to lift the carpets at the New York Stock Exchange to high.

Let's hope Bernie gets the whole 160 years. Maybe it will get the attention the self promoting financal wizards who collect hundreds of millions annually for lip service.

[honestindividual]

What's even more ridiculous than Madoff's scam (and all the so-called "investors" who were screwed big-time by him; notice that 98+% of them are from the same religious/ethnic group as he is), is that the SEC has nothing better to do than "bar" him from ever working in the securities industry! I can tell that he's just ready to jump right back in if he's allowed...after all, he's been unemployed for several months now, and he only managed to steal $60,000,000,000 (your numbers); at a paltry 2% annual rate of return, he and his wife and whoever are only getting an annual return of $1,200,000,000, or $3,287,671 per day, 365 days a year. Yeah, yeah, I'd be really looking for a job at that rate of pay.

[brianbwb-2009]

Madoff should be punished, but all who call for draconian punishments should realize that the entire securities market is a ponzi scheme, they all do what madoff did, they simply havn't been investigated, or audited.

Remember children, all investments are a form of gambling, you shouldn't bet what you cannot afford to lose.

Btw, you can all thank Reagan for this his was the administration that removed the guards from the henhouse, and left it to the wolves.

[number1GI]

Madoff , when I see you picture I get angry for what you did to all those investors who trusted you. I can't looking at your stinking face

[breadline1]

THEY SHOULD HANG MADOFF IN A PUBLIC SQUARE AND LEAVE HIS ROTTING CORPES FOR THE CROWS AND VULTURES. THEN WHEN THE SCAVENGERS GET DONE , PUT THE REMAINS IN A LANDFILL BECAUSE HE DOESN'T DESERVE TO BE BURIED ANYWHERE WITH DECENT PEOPLE.