Bernard Madoff to Learn His Fate

By Larry Neumeister and Tom Hays

NEW YORK -- It was a crime of epic proportions: a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that wiped out fortunes, drained retirement nest eggs, ruined charities and foundations, and even pushed some investors to commit suicide.

Six months after the scandal came to light, the battle lines over Bernard Madoff's punishment have been drawn. His lawyer insists 12 years in prison is enough. Prosecutors demand a 150-year sentence that would guarantee the 71-year-old spends his final days behind bars.

Some victims were expected to call for harsh punishment at the disgraced financier's sentencing Monday in federal court in Manhattan. Ten have told U.S. District Judge Denny Chin they wish to speak out in court.

Madoff also "will speak to the shame he has felt and to the pain he has caused," his attorney, Ira Sorkin, said in court papers.

"We seek neither mercy nor sympathy," Sorkin wrote. But the lawyer urged Chin to "set aside the emotion and hysteria attendant to this case" as he determines the sentence.

There was no shortage of emotion in recent e-mails and letters to the judge by victims.

Carla and Stanley Hirschhorn wrote that they lost their life savings -- "a living nightmare that we can't wake up from."

Miriam Siegman expressed outrage "at the spectacle of a man playing with his victims -- thousands of them -- who he knew were facing a kind of death, playing with them as a cat would with a mouse."