April 14 (Reuters) – Bernard Madoff, who was convicted for running the largest known Ponzi scheme in history, died on Wednesday in prison where he was serving a 150-year sentence, the Federal Bureau of Prisons said.
He was charged in 2009 with 11 criminal counts that prosecutors say spanned more than 20 years. The counts include: * Securities fraud, investment adviser fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, false statements, perjury, false filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and theft from an employee benefit plan. * Prosecutors said “the size and scope of Mr Madoff’s fraud are unprecedented,” and contend the alleged scheme lasted from “at least” the 1980s and Madoff hired numerous employees “with little or no prior pertinent training or experience in the securities industry” to communicate with his investment clients and “generate false and fraudulent documents.” * The U.S. government said Madoff investment business had about 4,800 client accounts as of November 30, 2008 and it issued statements for that month reporting that client accounts held a total balance of about $64.8 billion. In reality, the business “held only a small fraction” of that balance for clients. (Reporting by Martha Graybow and Paul Thomasch; Editing by Edward Tobin)
