Bernie Madoff: F*** My Victims Published: Monday, 7 Jun 2010 | 9:09 AM ET Text Size
Bernard Madoff, the author of the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, told inmates at the Butner prison where he is serving his 150 years jail sentence that his victims deserved what happened to them, because they were rich and greedy, according to an article in New York Magazine.
One evening a fellow prisoner kept asking Madoff about the victims of his $65 billion scheme and Madoff, angered, said: "F*** my victims. I carried them for twenty years, and now I'm doing 150 years," the magazine reported.
Madoff saw his years as the mastermind of the gigantic pyramid scheme as a "nightmare" and he told investigators that he wished he had been caught six, eight years before he was, according to the article.
He was past apologizing and created his own version of events in prison, the magazine wrote.
"People just kept throwing money at me," Madoff is said to have told a prison consultant who advised him on how to endure prison life. "Some guy wanted to invest, and if I said no, the guy said, 'What, I'm not good enough?'?"
Shannon Hay, a drug dealer who lived in the same prison unit as Madoff, told New York Magazine that the swindler shared with him his version of events.
"He told me his side. He took money off of people who were rich and greedy and wanted more," Hay, who was released in December, was quoted as saying.
In prison, Madoff is regarded as a success, is admired and has fans, the magazine wrote.
It quotes Robert Rosso, who serves life in prison, who wrote on a Web site he founded that Madoff is "a hero. He's arguably the greatest con of all time."