Bernard Madoff Pleads Guilty On All 11 Charges: UPDATE: Bail Revoked

There was no plea deal in place, but Bernie Madoff's legal team must have figured that throwing himself on the mercy of the court was better than waiting for a plea deal that would have required Madoff to allocute to the crimes and spill the beans on all the co-conspirators, which would have ensnared his family and closest friends.

Madoff entered guilty pleas to all 11 counts he was charged with, including fraud, perjury, and theft from an employee benefit plan and two counts of international money laundering.

Prosecutors say the disgraced financier, who has spent three months under house arrest in his $7 million in Manhattan penthouse, could face a maximum sentence of 150 years in prison at sentencing.

As the proceeding began, Madoff asked if he could have some water.

Judge Denny Chin swore Madoff in and asked him for his plea. After Madoff said he was pleading guilty, Chin explained that he would ask a series of questions before deciding whether to accept the plea.

"Mr. Madoff, you can be seated; pour yourself some water,'' Chin told him.

The plea came three months after the FBI claimed Madoff admitted to his sons that his once-revered investment fund was all a big lie, a Ponzi scheme that was in the billions of dollars. Since his arrest in December, the scandal has turned the 70-year-old former Nasdaq chairman into a pariah who has worn a bulletproof vest to court.

It remains to be seen whether the court remands Madoff to prison, or allows him to continue with house arrest pending sentencing. I'm sure his victims would want to see him sent directly to prison as he awaits sentencing.

More importantly, it remains to be seen what Madoff says to the court and prosecutors about his role in the Ponzi scheme that wiped out thousands of large and small investors and destroyed quite a few charities in the process.

The criminal case is U.S. v. Madoff, 09-cr-00213, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

UPDATE:
Bail has been revoked. Madoff is going to be spending what is likely to be the rest of his days in federal prison. That's cold comfort to those investors who lost everything.