The public story of Bernard L. Madoff is not a whodunit. It is the documented end of an advisory practice that had issued reassuring statements for decades and could not meet redemptions when the 2008 crash arrived.
What follows is the sequence courts and the SIPA trustee treated as established: the confession to family, the arrest, the plea, the sentence, and the long civil effort to put principal back in allowed accounts.
Beats
- A market-maker with a private book
Madoff’s firm was known for market-making. A quieter advisory practice, marketed through word of mouth and feeder funds, issued statements that later proved disconnected from actual trading for those customers.
- Redemptions in a crashing market
In late 2008, withdrawal requests rose faster than cash. Madoff told his sons the advisory business was a fraud. Counsel for the family contacted federal authorities.
- Arrest and receivership
The FBI arrested Madoff on 11 December 2008. The SEC obtained emergency relief. A SIPA trustee took control of the brokerage estate for the benefit of customers.
- Guilty plea in Manhattan
On 12 March 2009 Madoff admitted the eleven counts in open court. He did not try the case to a jury. The allocution became the factual baseline for sentencing and for later civil complaints.
- A 150-year sentence and a long recovery
Judge Chin imposed 150 years on 29 June 2009. Picard’s liquidation then spent years suing recipients of transfers. Distributions to allowed claimants continued long after the criminal case ended.
The story on the public record is a completed criminal case plus an unfinished ledger of recoveries — not an open question of whether the advisory statements were real.
Public-record encyclopedia. Not legal advice. Not a how-to. Graphic detail is withheld. Wars belong in a separate atlas.