At the time of this writing Bernie Madoff hasn’t officially admitted anything and the crimes he is believed to have committed are still just alleged. I nonetheless have been having an active correspondence with a fair number of people about this man and his legal travails and gotten a slew of opinions that are both fascinating and scary.
My correspondents generally feel, for example, that he is gaming federal white collar crime fighters much as he gamed federal financial regulators. That he had enough time to order his affairs before coming forward with admissions that circumstances made impossible to ignore. And that he therefore arranged the best possible outcomes for himself, his family and his best friends. More specifically, that these loved ones and retainers would keep large amounts of what he is alleged to have gotten in nefarious ways, and be free of their own criminal liability.
About Bernie’s own possible punishment my correspondents felt he also had time to arrange things in the best possible way. One emailer thought he would drag out his description of how his alleged scams worked for a very long time during which he would not be sent to the slammer. Another opined that heart palpitations would be found to afflict the man, and while he then might be convicted and formally sentenced he would never actually go to jail.
My own contribution to this dialogue was the view that Bernie might well be sent to one of those nicely furnished white collar criminal farms. There, with the help of a New York literary agent, he would get a seven figure advance to tell his story in print, and give all proceeds from book sales to charity—just before his first parole hearing. Thereafter, with the help of a top p.r. firm, his reputation would commence to be little by little de-tarnished.
Whether or not any of these prognostications come to pass, there really is a scary element to this whole Madoff affair—the seemingly universally held notion that big time white collar criminal defendants get very, very special handling by our criminal justice system.
Equal justice for all isn’t a real world possibility. Ever or anywhere. But unequal justice for a few is a real prescription for trouble in times when so many have been bilked out of so much by so few.