Bernard Madoff, a former Roslyn resident who has spent the last 10 years serving a 150-year prison sentence, is seeking a lending hand from the president.
Madoff has applied for a commutation of his sentence, a request that is currently pending, according to the Department of Justice website. The president has the power to ultimately grant or deny clemency, and a commutation of sentence includes either a partial or total prison sentence reduction.
The man behind the largest Ponzi scheme ever conducted pleaded guilty in 2009 to 11 charges for using the company he founded to steal billions of dollars from clients.
The president has the constitutional right to both grant commutations and pardons. Madoff has only applied for the former.
The Department of Justice has not publicly disclosed when Madoff, 81, applied for the commutation. Investigative reporter Bill Dedman tweeted the information July 22, and CNBC was the first to report on it.
That mean’s it is possible that the request was submitted during Barack Obama’s presidency.
Prior to his presidency, Trump wrote in his book “Think Like a Champion” that he had declined Madoff’s invitation to invest in his funds and called him a “sleazebag.”
Trump has granted only four commutations since assuming the presidency.
Madoff is currently held in a prison in Butner, N.C.
