Madoff arrives at federal prison in North Carolina
— -- When Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison last month, defense lawyer Ira Lee Sorkin asked U.S. District Judge Denny Chin to recommend that the Ponzi scheme architect serve the time in an Otisville, N.Y., prison, a roughly 75-mile drive from his former Manhattan home.
Chin promised only to recommend placement in the Northeast — stressing that the U.S. Bureau of Prisons had the final say.
Prison agency officials officially vetoed the defense request Tuesday, placing the disgraced 71-year-old financier in a medium-security federal prison in Butner, N.C., approximately an eight-hour drive from New York City.
"But for the distance, it's certainly something we're pleased with," Sorkin said.
Asked whether the prospect of New York-to-North Carolina visits would pose a hardship for Ruth Madoff, the wife of the man viewed as the most reviled financial criminal in modern history, Sorkin replied: "It's eight hours away. ... It depends on what you consider a hardship."
The new home for Madoff, who bilked investors around the world out of at least $13 billion, is the Federal Correctional Institution Butner. His building currently holds about 725 male inmates in a multi-building complex near the Research Triangle area of Durham, Raleigh and Chapel Hill.
Other well-known inmates at the complex include former Adelphia Communications CEO John Rigas, convicted in a corporate securities fraud, and Omar Abdel-Rahman, the Islamic sheik found guilty in a plot to destroy the United Nations headquarters and other New York landmarks.
"I can't say that's where he'll be forever, but that's where he's been assigned to begin serving his sentence," said Linda Thomas, a prison agency spokeswoman.
Madoff, who is all but certain to die behind bars, was scheduled to participate in an orientation session Tuesday to familiarize him with the prison's disciplinary and security procedures. Thomas said federal regulations would not allow her to say whether he would need special security to protect him from other prisoners.
