For his multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme, Bernie Madoff was sentenced 150 years in prison. Rich men doing hard time is a very recent concept in America. The man who invented this recently updated con, Charles Ponzi, only served eight years in prison in 1925.

The term “white-collar crime” was coined by the American Sociological Society in 1939 after they reported that only two percent of America’s criminals belonged to high income inmates.
Since some have called Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme “the crime of the century,” let’s start with case of a billionaire murdering another billionaire.

- In 1906, millionaire Harry K. Thaw killed another millionaire, Stanford White, in front of all of Madison Square Garden. This was also dubbed “the crime of the century” by newspapers. His legal team had him dubbed insane and his money got him easy prison time for a handful of years. He became a repeat offender with other assault trials in his life after that but this process of a good legal defense repeated itself and he kept getting lenient sentences in cushy sanatariums.

Moving through the decades after which media exposure evolved…

-Michael Milken is the inspiration for Gordon Gekko of Oliver Stone’s movie “Wall Street.” Called the “Junk Bond King,” Milken was charged with racketeering, insider trading and securities fraud. He was only sentenced on minimal securities fraud charges to 10 years in prison. Milken served only two years, and in 2007 was listed as the 458th richest person in the world by Forbes Magazine.

But the case that changed everything was…

-Enron. Enron is really what changed it all. This huge scam built on fake stock and profits which didn’t exist cost billions for the market and people wanted blood.
The company’s CEO Kenneth Lay dropped dead from stress before he could do prison time, but Jeffrey Skilling was sentenced to 24 years in prison.
The collapse of the stock also led the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) to creat Sarbanes Oxley, which requires stricter compliance and oversight from companies.

Given this history, I bet you the Brooklyn Bridge that Bernie Madoff will get a much more lenient prison deal than he deserves.

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