Disgraced Madoff is trading his penthouse for prison

NEW YORK -- Bernard Madoff was expected to awaken at 6 a.m. Friday in a federal jail that over the years has held blind Islamic terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, reputed Bonanno crime family boss Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano and an assortment of other criminals and suspects.

Breakfast was scheduled for 6:30 a.m. at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, the lower Manhattan lockup where Madoff, 70, was taken in handcuffs after he pleaded guilty Thursday to masterminding what may be the largest Ponzi scheme in history.

And lights out was set for 11 p.m. — unless defense attorney Ira Lee Sorkin succeeded with a scheduled federal appeals court hearing today of U.S. District Judge Denny Chin's decision to revoke Madoff's $10 million bail and order him jailed pending a June 16 sentencing at which he'll face up to 150 years behind bars.

U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokesman Scott Sussman confirmed Madoff was among prisoners at the jail just blocks from the Ground Zero site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Fellow inmates include Arthur Nadel, a Florida financier charged with bilking investors of as much as $350 million in an alleged Ponzi scheme dwarfed by the nearly $65 billion prosecutors said was reported in Madoff's records.

But Sussman said he could not disclose whether Madoff, among the most publicly reviled scam architects in memory, was being held in protective custody to shield him from other inmates.

"Housing status would be based on security needs," Sussman said.

Barring a 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals decision overruling Chin, Madoff's temporary home was likely to be a typical 7½-by-8-foot cell equipped with a sink and toilet.

The start of the disgraced financier's descent from penthouse to penitentiary came after a dramatic plea hearing in which he pronounced himself "deeply sorry" for running a massive financial scam whose thousands of victims include Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, retired baseball great Sandy Koufax, Hollywood star Kevin Bacon and average investors around the globe.

Financially crippled or even wiped out by the scam, charities and philanthropic organizations have been forced to shut down, and individual investors have been forced to sell their homes.

So there seemed little surprise that about 25 angry victims in the packed 24th-floor Manhattan federal courtroom applauded as Madoff was led to the jail in handcuffs. Even President Obama "is glad that swift justice will happen," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in Washington.