Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit
Madoff is the exception rather than the rule--and even Madoff operated his Ponzi scheme for over 40 years before being prosecuted.

Madoff's arrest and prosecution was actually pretty ineffectual in my opinion. If an amoral person can live as one of the richest men in the world for 40 years in exchange for spending the last 10 years of their life in minimum-security prison, I think a lot of amoral people would take that trade.

Bernie Ebbers and Jeff Skilling both got more than 20 years for Enron. The CEO and co-owner of NCFE got 30 years and 25 years respectively for their role in a securities and wire fraud relating to that business.
> In December 2019, Ebbers was released from Federal Medical Center, Fort Worth, due to declining health, having served 13 years of his 25-year sentence, and he died just over a month later.[1]

...living until the age of 61 as one of the richest men in the world, then spending 13 years in minimum-security prison.

> In 2013, following a further appeal, and earlier accusations that prosecutors had concealed evidence from Skilling's lawyers prior to his trial, the United States Department of Justice reached a deal with Skilling, which resulted in ten years being cut from his sentence, reducing it to 14 years. He was moved to a halfway house in 2018 and released from custody in 2019, after serving 12 years. [2]

...living until the age of 53 as one of the richest men in the world, then spending 12 years in minimum-security prison.

Re: NCFE: Lance K. Poulsen went to jail at 65, and while I wasn't able to find out his current situation, he's about due to get out of jail if the other cases are any indication[3]. Rebecca S. Parrett, 60, fled after her conviction and was arrested at age 62 in Mexico, largely due to fleeing to a country with robust US extradition (why?)[4].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Ebbers

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Skilling

[3] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-national-century-finan...

[4] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/fugitive-ohio-executive-previ...