Prison, Ponzi Scheme | featured news

The star prosecution witness in the trial of convicted Texas financier R. Allen Stanford was sentenced Tuesday to five years in prison for helping to bilk investors out of more than $7 billion in one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history.

The brother of imprisoned financier Bernard Madoff was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison for crimes committed in the shadow of his notorious sibling by a judge who said she disbelieved his claims that he did not know about the epic fraud.

Former jet-setting Texas tycoon R. Allen Stanford, whose financial empire once spanned the Americas, was sentenced Thursday to 110 years in prison for bilking investors out of more than $7 billion over 20 years in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history.

Disgraced financier Bernie Madoff has told an interviewer he has terrible remorse and horrible nightmares over his epic fraud, but also said he feels happier in prison than he's felt in 20 years.

South Florida Ponzi scheme mastermind Scott Rothstein was sentenced to 50 years in prison on Wednesday for an investment fraud that bilked clients out of more than $1 billion.

David G. Friehling pleaded guilty to nine criminal charges carrying a potential prison term of 114 years.

Bernard Madoff, convicted of swindling $65 billion through the biggest-ever Ponzi scheme, has told fellow prison inmates that he is dying of cancer, the New York Post reported on Monday, citing unnamed prison sources.

R. Allen Stanford, the Texas financier accused of directing a $7 billion Ponzi scheme, complained that his jail cell often lacks light and air conditioning.

For the past week, Stanford, who's in a cell in Conroe, Texas, with from eight to 10 other men, has endured heat and intermittent lack of power when outside temperatures reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) or more, his lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, said yesterday in a motion asking that his client be transferred to a downtown Houston jail.

With time credited for good behavior, Bernard L. Madoff might be free in 2039.

Arch swindler Bernard Madoff will not appeal the 150-year prison sentence he received for masterminding a global multibillion-dollar investment fraud, his main lawyer said on Thursday.