Madoff starts prison sentence

By Grant McCool

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bernard Madoff's prison life began on Tuesday, a long way from the luxury homes, sleek yachts and precious designer watches and clothes he accumulated in the years he ran Wall Street's biggest investment fraud.

Prison officials said the 71-year-old swindler checked into the Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina, where two other well-known white collar criminals, a convicted spy and a convicted bomb plotter are incarcerated.

The disgraced New York financier arrived on Tuesday morning in a prison van after being moved from a jail cell in his home city and then temporarily to a federal prison in Atlanta, a prisons spokeswoman said.

Federal Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Linda Thomas confirmed that the prison, 45 miles northwest of Raleigh, North Carolina, was Madoff's final destination to serve the effective life sentence he received on June 29 for bilking thousands of investors from all walks of life.

A judge sentenced him to a total of 150 years on several criminal charges, including securities fraud, money laundering and perjury for a Ponzi scheme amounting to as much as $65 billion worldwide over about 20 years. A Ponzi scheme is one in which early investors are paid with money from new clients.

Madoff has spent the last four months in the Manhattan Correctional Centre next door to the courthouse where he pleaded guilty in March. He was arrested by the FBI in December after confessing to his two sons that he was a fraud.

PRISON CLOTHES

At the 3,400-inmate prison, Madoff will wear prison-issued clothing, initially be in isolation and then have a cell mate, according to those who have served time in the U.S. system. He will earn pennies a day doing menial work.