Acrimoney has given further thought to Madoff’s request for leniency. Ira Sorkin, Madoff’s defense attorney, argued for a twelve-year prison sentence. He referenced Madoff’s life expectancy of thirteen years as justification.
Madoff is seventy-one. If he lives thirteen more years, he’ll reach eighty-four, the average life expectancy for men living in the USA. Sorkin is arguing, in effect, that twelve years equals a life sentence.
Not so fast.
From our work in wealth management, we know insurance companies adjust mortality expectations. As men age, insurers expect them to live beyond eighty-four years.
Huh?
A man who reaches the age of sixty, for example, has a reasonable shot at living to the age of eighty-nine. If that same man reaches seventy, his life expectancy increases to ninety-one years according to some mortality tables.
So are twelve years a life sentence for Madoff?
Nobody knows. Acrimoney urges the courts to eliminate the guesswork.
Why not sentence Madoff to sixty-five billion years in jail?
The New York Times describes my novels as “money porn,” “a red-hot franchise,” and “glittery thrillers about fiscal malfeasance.” Through fiction I explore the dark side of money and the motivations of those who have it, want more, and will steamroll anybody who gets in their way.