Madoff faces sentencing in court

Financier Bernard Madoff is to be sentenced on Monday for plotting a $50bn (£30.3bn) investment fraud.

The disgraced financier, 71, who pleaded guilty in March, could face a sentence of 150 years.

Madoff’s lawyer is asking for a 12-year sentence. The hearing is scheduled to start at 1000 local time (1400 GMT).

Prosecutors have promised to seize his assets and make him pay restitution, but it remains unclear whether former investors will get any money back.

In a preliminary hearing on Friday, judge District Judge Denny Chin ordered Madoff to forfeit $171bn in assets, while his wife Ruth had to forfeit more than $80m in net worth she claimed was hers.

The giant figure Madoff was ordered to forfeit was equal to the sum prosecutors said had passed through his investment firm over the years. In practice, however, such funds do not exist.

Under the order the Madoffs must sell a $7m Manhattan apartment where Ruth Madoff lives.

Other assets to be sold include an $11m estate in Palm Beach, Florida, a $4m home in Montauk and a $2.2m boat.

But an agreement with prosecutors has enabled Ruth Madoff to keep $2.5m in cash.

Life savings

Bernard Madoff has admitted defrauding thousands of investors in a Ponzi scheme which he said had been running since the early 1990s.

He pleaded guilty to 11 charges in March, including securities fraud and money laundering.

Many investors have written to the judge, with some saying entire life savings have been lost and mortgages are not being paid, following the fraud.

Only 10 have said they wish to speak out in court. Madoff will read a statement before the judge hands down a decision.