One hundred and fifty years.
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That’s a long time to be breaking rocks or making license plates.
That’s 150 years without caviar, paté or designer Scotch.
Even though Bernie copped to his crimes and apologized to his victims, the judge showed no mercy. He threw the book at Madoff.
But consider this: A provincial judge in China’s Zhejiang Province recently sentenced a 44-year old businesswoman, convicted of cheating investors out of 700 million Yuan (approximately $100 million), to death. Du Yimin raised money from her “investors” promising returns as high as 10 percent. Similar to the Ponzi scheme conducted by Madoff, Du used new investor money to pay off previous investors.
A Deterrent or Not?
This is not the first time the Chinese have imposed the death penalty for the commission of financial crimes nor was Du the first woman to receive such harsh penalty. Another Zhejiang woman was sentenced to death as the consequence of a fraudulent financial scheme in 1986.
In February 2008, the chairman of a trading company was convicted and sentenced to death for a creative scam involving fund-raising for an “ant farming business.” He promised high returns to eastern and northeast farmers who bought his ants to “raise” them, collecting nearly 3 billion Yuan for the company and himself.
American policymakers rationalize capital punishment by claiming that the fear of death is an excellent deterrent and a fitting punishment for cases of extreme harm to an individual (murder) or a community (sex offenders). In only rare instances, however, has it actually been proven that the fear of death has deterred a single crime of passion or the depravity of an anti-social criminal.
Most death penalty experts agree that to be deterrent, potential criminals need time to weigh the crime against the penalty and some level of native intelligence to understand that death by lethal injection or the electric chair is very likely if they commit a heinous offense.
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Ethical and religious considerations aside, perhaps the death penalty should not be reserved for violent physical crime only. If we are going to accept the death penalty as punishment we are willing to impose, then it also may be an appropriate consequence for crimes resulting in extreme economic harm such as embezzlement, fraud or conspiracies of silence that enable the commission of these crimes.
In the United States, like many other countries, the death penalty can be imposed in cases of treason because it compromises state security. As in the case of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who were convicted of passing nuclear secrets to the Soviets, traitors can be executed even if it’s never shown that their seditious acts directly led to a single mortality.
Sentenced to Life and to Death
If you listen to many of Madoff’s victims, especially the elderly, the losses they suffered were catastrophic. Miriam Siegman, a retired schoolteacher, has lost all of her savings and pension she entrusted to Madoff. She now has lost her home, is on food stamps, regularly searches dumpsters for food, and is unable to buy critical medicine.
Siegman was once proud of her independence. As her health declines, she now fears that she soon will be unable to care for herself. Bernie may have been sentenced to life, but Siegman was condemned to a slow agonizing death.
Madoff orchestrated his own outcome. He knew that he would be caught, and he surrendered on his terms.
Even though Judge Chin handed out the harshest sentence allowable under the law, it’s unlikely that Madoff will even serve a fraction of his term. At the age of 71, after a life of unimaginable indulgence, he will likely die before he ever appreciates the horror of his crime or suffers the real grinding monotony of his sentence.
While Madoff’s crime was spectacular, it is far from uncommon.
Every day, the news reports others who have suffered at the hands of lesser criminals, their life savings erased and their planned security in ruins.
Maybe the Chinese have the right idea.
John Cohn is a senior partner in the Globe West Financial Group, based in West Los Angeles. He may be contacted at www.globewestfinancial.com
