Bernard Madoff received his sentence of 150 years in jail

By Iroabuchi Onwuka

June 29th 2009 is a day to be remembered for many things including a very fair weather and the sentencing of a disgraced financier by name Bernard Madoff. Bernard Madoff received 150 years sentence for a proven case of 'securities fraud' 'racketeering' and the scheme to commit fraud. He was given a short window of probation after the initial 50 years at which time he is likely to have reached his 120th year. For a man 71 years old, this was nothing more than a death nail. We should not forget to mention that Judge Chin had his day before the world, and it cannot be denied that seem to penetrate the minds of the people is that the court provided the hammer for justice.

The sentencing of Bernie Madoff represented to me a formal closure of a sad event, but more than anything it was an opportunity for US judiciary to clean their mess before the world. Before Madoff there has been all kinds of miscarriage of judicial process, the kind that takes place everyday, the kind that see many Blacks and Hispanic go to jail for nothing and New York City residents thrown away from their houses for nothing. I mean, we still have bad taste of the acquittal involving the death of Sean John's but this 29th of June 2009 was for one man only, Bernie Madoff who was a big elephant for the US Judicial altar.

I was however part of the physical crowd present during the sentencing of this Bernard Madoff at 500 Pearl street located at Worth between Bowery and Center street, New York. This is a ceremonial lower Manhattan court house named after Patrick Monahan, at least a quarter of mile away from China town. Looking around me, it was impossible to deny the emotion of people whose life where wiped out by this biggest fraud in US history and of very rich people who were beginning to feel the pince of poverty in New York. Yet the irony of this very rich crowd was that New York had something in the neighbourhood of 35 thousand homeless people who non of them including Madoff would had the course to look twice, even if 15 thousand of these homeless are just children. Yet a fraud is a fraud, and the axe that has fallen on many will not evade the broker like Bernie Madoff who tells you that a deal was off becuase your parents are dead.

If the crowd seethes with resentment at the Court it was due to the heat of the sun and if they were very impatient it was baucause the 9th floor was entertained to long court proceedure. The journalist themselves were all over the place. They were working from very squeezed area of that downtown and many of them where changing their cloths right in front of the crowd. The Black trucks were also present for these news makers. There was CNN and American satelite link who occupied much of the place, there was Accent and TVL Technologies group, there was a black truck of NY 1, there was Channel 12, Eyewitness news/ABC Channel 7, CNBC, Court TV, and many other people with their HDTV all squeezing for action on this historic day. Then there was the rest of us watching the drama evolve and the people who we call Tourist all still clutching for the news on Bernard Madoff, who broefly reminded of Jay Could and Fisk in not past a century. I for one, seriously regretted not having a Camera and an audio recorder on this day, there was people willing to have their say on this day.

I could guese that not many standing in the crowd know the whole story about the man in question called Madoff, saving for the constant news that he did something wrong in finances market. He took people's money and as such he should pay for it seem the general hope. But how he ruined people's life saving and families trust funds. This scam involved his fellow Jews and no only that, it involved top dogs and attroneys like Robert Shapiro and big time film maker who had helped his people to a very extent; Steven Spielberg. The worst aspect of the whole thing is that he committed securities fraud. That he used his positions and connections in NYC stock exchange to steal away people's trust fund which means that he probably took fillinf orders and cash with it and never did anything with it. He may have also have scammed his way somehow to the top, perhaps gradually and most perhaps through illegal means, with hope perhaps to redeem their money at a later date. But who cares about such thing, the man was down already from the public disgrace he brought on himself and his Jewish people.

According to CNNmoney, several two finacial institutions had already presented a public case on the man and an insurance company by Securities Investor Protection Insurance had approve 371 claims totalling 161 million dollars. Trustee Irving Picard has at least 13 000 listings totaling 13 billion dollars. Yet deeper into the very formation of the insurance companies and the people
who revolved around this Trustee Irving Picard - despite their public claims - will show that Madoff was not alone. Some of his Jewish people may have been hurt in persons, in wealth and in ideas, but he was not alone and they not alone.

'Sun for spite will not show his face' is from a poem by Abraham Ibn Ezra, a 13th century of Jew of Spain and North Africa. The sufferings of his people were too hard to speak off and now in this US where displaced Jews from Spain settled, Madoff begins to re-enact the stupid suspicions of his Jewish people. Shall we begin to call Madoff case a tragedy since his rise to the all wonderful position of Chairman of Nasdaq came from hardwork and stealth of day trade, and his fall came from feeling too comfortable hence acting in breach of public trust. Perhaps in future, but today belong to the sentencing of Bernie Madoff who rigged people out of their lifelong money, a scheme like nothing we have ever seen, a Ponzi scheme like nothing we should be force to see in our time.