Madoff in Atlanta penitentiary, prison official says
— -- Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff, sentenced to 150 years in prison for running a massive Ponzi scheme, was in a federal penitentiary in Georgia this morning, prison officials said Tuesday.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons reported on its website that the 71-year-old Madoff was in the medium-security, United States Penitentiary Atlanta. Agency spokeswoman Felicia Ponce confirmed Madoff's was at least temporarily being held in the 1,949-inmate facility.
"I don't know how long he will be in our facility in Atlanta and whether he will serve his sentence there yet," said Ponce.
She indicated Madoff was being photographed, fingerprinted and going through other routine security and orientation procedures for inmates newly arrived at a federal prison.
Based on an account by the Associated Press, USA TODAY had reported earlier today that Madoff would ultimately serve his sentence — which virtually guarantees he'll die behind bars — at a federal prison in Butner, N.C.
On Monday, the Bureau of Prisons had said only that Madoff was not at one of its facilities, signaling that he was apparently being transferred.
Madoff, arrested in December as his scam collapsed, had been held since March at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan, not far from the Ground Zero site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.
The Bureau of Prisons, citing security reasons, said its policy is not to confirm the location of recently sentenced inmates until they arrive at the facility at which they have been assigned to serve their terms.
Madoff is among the most reviled financial criminals in modern history after running a decades-long scam that bilked thousands of clients worldwide out of billions of dollars by using money from new investors to pay older ones.
The Bureau of Prisons website shows the Georgia penitentiary is located in southeast Atlanta. Along with the medium-security prison, it includes a satellite facility for minimum security male inmates, the website shows.
