New York Federal District Court Judge Denny Chin ordered alleged $50-billion-dollar swindler Bernard L. Madoff to stand before him Tuesday and proceeded to question the disgraced money manager for 15 minutes
When Judge Chin, 55, entered the courtroom shortly after 3 p.m., Madoff rose and was dwarfed by the attorneys who flanked him, reported Money.CNN.com. Within minutes, Madoff was asked to stand again, was sworn in, and for 15 minutes, he answered questions from the judge. Madoff managed to look dignified, even in responding to questions on whether he’d ever been hospitalized for mental illness or whether he was taking any medicine or drugs (the answers were no on all scores) that might impair his ability to make a reasoned judgment on his lawyer’s potential conflicts.
Reported Money.CNN.com: Throughout the question-and-answer session, Madoff stood bolt upright, four fingers of each hand resting on the table in front of him. Judge Chin reeled off a list of theoretical scenarios in which Madoff’s lawyer could have “divided loyalties,” “a potential conflict of interest,” or “might have limitations on cross-examining” certain witnesses. Madoff disavowed any concerns in quiet, brief answers. The judge asked him if he’d obtained independent counsel to advise him on whether he should keep his original lawyer. (He had.) Chin asked Madoff if he wanted more time to think about it. Madoff said he didn’t. The effect was of a person resigned to his fate.
The press, prosecution and Judge Chin all bent over backwards to emphasize that no deal was being struck in exchange for Madoff’s guilty pleas to 11 counts including money laundering, perjury and fraud, that could bring a sentence of 150 years in prison to the 70-year-old reviled alleged swindler.
Madoff will be required to stand before Judge Chin March 12 and speak once again, this time in the legal process known as “allocution.” Defendants are generally not permitted simply to plead guilty; they have to explain exactly what they did wrong (the notion being that a defendant can’t later claim that he didn’t understand what he was admitting to).
Judge Chin has already stated he won’t formally sentence Madoff for months, he could revoke Madoff’s bail and send him to jail for the first time. After all, sometime after 10 a.m. Thursday, Madoff will be transformed from an “alleged” Ponzi scammer, in media parlance, into an “admitted” Ponzi scammer
- Judge Denny Chin, Biographical Directory of Federal Judges
- Denny Chin, Wikipedia
- Hon. Denny Chin, U.S. District Judge, Southern District of New York
- Living the American Dream: U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, Asian American Bar Association of New York, AABANY Advocate
- New York Times Archive: News about Denny Chin
A Thousand Words
March 11, 2009
This isn’t new, but if you haven’t seen Ted G. Chung’s A Thousand Words, you should. It’s gentle genius.
- Moar Ted Chung Vids, Berlinale Talent Campus
- New Ted Chung Project, On Time
H/T Disgrasian, Reckon
