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Quick answers
What did Bernard Madoff plead guilty to?
On 12 March 2009 he pleaded guilty in the Southern District of New York to eleven felony counts, among them securities fraud, investment-adviser fraud, mail and wire fraud, money laundering, false statements, perjury, false SEC filings, and theft from an employee benefit plan.
How long was the prison sentence?
Judge Denny Chin imposed 150 years on 29 June 2009, the statutory maximum on the counts as grouped. Madoff died in federal custody on 14 April 2021 at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina.
How much money was involved?
Customer statements at collapse implied about $65 billion including fictitious gains. Court and trustee materials later put net principal lost near $17–20 billion. Forfeiture paperwork used a much larger paper figure; SIPA recoveries are tracked against allowed principal claims.
Did the SEC examine the firm before 2008?
Yes. The 2009 inspector-general report documents multiple tips and examinations, including submissions associated with Harry Markopolos, that did not result in stopping the advisory fraud. The report is a public critique of those reviews.
What is the Picard trusteeship?
After the firm entered SIPA liquidation, the Bankruptcy Court appointed Irving H. Picard as trustee to marshal assets and distribute them to allowed customers. His reports and adversary complaints are the main civil record of who received what and when.
Were other people convicted?
Yes. Among them, Frank DiPascali, who had overseen much of the advisory paperwork, pleaded guilty in 2009. Peter Madoff, the defendant’s brother and former chief compliance officer, pleaded guilty in 2012 and received a ten-year sentence. Other employees and outside counterparties faced criminal or civil cases.
The Madoff investigation in the public record begins after the confession to family, not as a successful pre-collapse detection. Agents took a statement, the SEC froze the firm, and a trustee took the books.
Later work was forensic accounting and civil recovery: subpoenas, bank records, and adversary proceedings. This page describes those after-the-fact steps, not any method of concealment.
Agencies
- Federal Bureau of Investigation — Arrested Madoff on 11 December 2008 and supported the U.S. Attorney’s criminal case in the Southern District of New York.
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission — Filed the emergency civil action, later settled related enforcement matters, and commissioned the inspector-general review of prior examinations.
- U.S. Attorney, Southern District of New York — Charged Madoff and later defendants; took the 2009 plea and tried or resolved employee and related cases.
- SIPA trustee (Picard) — Liquidated the broker-dealer estate, sued recipients of transfers, and distributed recoveries to allowed customers under bankruptcy-court supervision.
What followed
- Family report
After Madoff’s admission to his sons, counsel notified federal authorities on 10 December 2008.
- Arrest
FBI agents arrested Madoff at his apartment on 11 December 2008 and began seizing firm records.
- Emergency civil relief
The SEC obtained a freeze and the appointment of a receiver, soon succeeded by the SIPA process.
- Plea negotiations
Prosecutors and defense reached an eleven-count plea entered on 12 March 2009, avoiding a guilt-phase trial.
- Sentencing record
Victim letters and government submissions went to Judge Chin before the 29 June 2009 hearing.
- Civil reconstruction
Picard’s team matched statements to bank flows and filed hundreds of adversary actions to recover transfers.
Turning points
- The December 2008 admission — Without the confession to family and the prompt report to authorities, the firm might have lingered days or weeks longer; the public investigation starts from that report.
- The 2009 OIG report — The inspector-general file shifted part of the story from a single defendant to a documented pattern of missed examinations.
- Large SIPA settlements — Bank and feeder settlements in the 2010s turned a theoretically enormous hole into a measurable recovery rate on allowed principal.
Investigators after December 2008 were reconstructing a completed collapse. The unsolved piece is why earlier official looks did not stop the advisory book — a question the OIG already answered in part.
Public-record encyclopedia. Not legal advice. Not a how-to. Graphic detail is withheld. Wars belong in a separate atlas.