Madoff's guilty plea

So why is Bernie forgoing a trial or a plea deal? One day we'll get the skinny, but for now the move has caught many Madoff followers by surprise. It's probably kind of a letdown for those hoping that a full-blown trial would provide some sort of closure. Instead, a Thursday hearing could end the whole shooting match, at least as far as Madoff’s criminal case is concerned. From the NYT:

Judge Chin said that after listening to Mr. Madoff’s admissions at Thursday’s hearing, he would decide whether to accept the plea and whether to remand him to jail pending sentencing in several months. In court documents filed immediately after Tuesday’s hearing, prosecutors detailed the case against Mr. Madoff. In the filing, federal prosecutors say Mr. . Madoff solicited billions of dollars from investors since at least the 1980s, but used most of the funds to meet periodic investment requests from various investors.

Here's a snippet from the prosecution's case:

From at least as early as the 1980s through on or about December 11, 2008, BERNARD L. MADOFF, the defendant, perpetrated a scheme to defraud the clients of Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC by soliciting billions of dollars of funds under false pretenses, failing to invest investors' funds as promised, and misappropriating and converting investors' funds to MADOFF's own benefit and the benefit of others without the knowledge or authorization of the investors. To execute the Scheme, MADOFF solicited and caused others to solicit prospective clients to open trading accounts with BLMIS, based upon, among other things, his promise to use investor funds to purchase shares of common stock, options and other securities of large, well-known corporations, and representations that he would achieve high rates of return for clients, with limited risk. In truth and in fact, as MADOFF well knew, these representations were false. MADOFF failed to honor his promises to BLMIS clients by, among other things, failing to invest the BLMIS investment advisory clients' funds in securities as he had promised. Instead, notwithstanding his promises to the contrary, and notwithstanding representations that MADOFF made and caused to be made on tens of thousands of account statements and other documents sent through the United States Postal Service to BLMIS clients throughout the operation of this scheme, MADOFF operated a massive Ponzi scheme in which client funds were misappropriated and converted to the use of MADOFF, BLMIS, and others.