American businessman, stockbroker, investment advisor, and financier. He is the former non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock market, and the admitted operator of a Ponzi scheme that is considered to be the largest financial fraud in U.S. history.
Madoff aroused the suspicion of his two sons Mark and Andrew, when they learned he intended to pay out bonuses two months early. When they confronted him on 10 December 2008, he confessed that his entire career was a fraud. He was arrested the following morning at his Manhattan home.
Madoff was held under house arrest on 12 March 2009, when he pled guilty to the charges against him and was placed in custody. On 29 June 2009, he was sentenced to 150 years in federal prison.
His son, Mark Madoff, committed suicide by hanging at his Manhattan home on 11 December 2010, the two-year anniversary of his father’s arrest.
Madoff suffered a heart attack in December 2013, and reportedly suffered from end-stage renal disease (ESRD). He claimed in an email to CNBC in January 2014 that he had kidney cancer, but this was unconfirmed. In court filing from his lawyer in February 2020, it was revealed Madoff was suffering from chronic kidney failure.
Madoff died of natural causes on 14 April 2021, aged 82, in Federal Medical Center, Butner, a federal prison for inmates with special health needs near Butner, North Carolina.
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