LARRY ROIBAL

Ball point pen on the morning newsprint

Madoff was sentenced to 150 years. Here are some other sentenced notables, From top to bottom: Shalam Weiss was sentenced to 845 years for bilking $125 million from National Heritage Life Insurance. Bernard Ebbers got 25 years for taking WorldCom for $11 Billion. Jeffrey Skilling is serving 24.3 years for fraud and conspiring to mislead investors of Enron.

Ball point pen on the morning newsprint

A Ponzi scheme, named after the notorious Charles Ponzi who perpetrated the scheme in the 1920’s, promises a large return on investments, then in order to to gain legitimacy and prolong the scheme, pays returns to existing investors with funds from new investors. Eventually the pyramid comes crashing down, this time on the head of present day Ponzi, Bernard Madoff.