Madoff: $40 A Month In Prison, Consumed With Guilt

Bernie Madoff’s $40 a month salary may not seem like much, but the jailed Ponzi schemer can finally say he’s honestly earning a living in jail after the collapse of his massive financial house of cards.

Madoff’s $40 a month check is earned in the prison’s commissary, where the disgraced former finance guru toils for his pay while serving a lengthy stint for his crimes.

Earlier this month, Madoff’s $40 a month pay was revealed in a jailhouse interview with the scammer — and money is the least of his concerns right now, Bernie says.

While he sits in jail, Madoff contemplates the extent of his crumbled financial empire, and he spoke candidly about his life post-prison.

Far from the shady billions Madoff once controlled, his modest earnings didn’t even enable him to call CNN to speak during the interview — he was forced to make a collect call.

Madoff spoke of his new job in jail, and said:

“I used to work as a clerk in the commissary, and now they have me taking care of the telephone and the computer systems.”

Madoff is serving 150 years, but jail is nothing compared with the guilt he lives with each day of his sentence — he says:

“I’m usually up at 4:30 in the morning because I can t sleep … I was responsible for my son Mark’s death and that’s very, very difficult.

Madoff continued:

“I live with that. I live with the remorse, the pain I caused everybody, certainly my family, and the victims … Obviously, the main concern that I have is being away from my family. Married for 50 years, I had a very close family.”

While Madoff’s fate seems terrible, some victims still have not been able to say his suffering is enough.

Mike De Vita is a Madoff victim who co-wrote a book about the scandal titled The Club that No One Wanted to Join.

De Vita says that Madoff is unrepentant, and says of the former financier’s guilt over Mark Madoff’s suicide:

“How could a father bring his own two sons into a business that he knows is nothing more than a massive criminal enterprise? If he has that little consideration for his own family, how much consideration do you think he has for us?”

Do you think Madoff’s $40 a month earnings and lengthy sentence is punishment enough?