On Monday, convicted con man Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in jail, and today federal authorities took possession of his $7 million Manhattan penthouse, forcing his wife to leave and look for somewhere else to live.

Ruth Madoff was told ahead of time that she would be forced to vacate her lush Manhattan penthouse, and reportedly she did leave the property this afternoon around 1 PM EST. The penthouse, on East 64th Street will be sold, with the proceeds being used to help reimburse the victims of the nations largest ever Ponzi scheme.

Bernie Madoff was in federal court today, where he was given a 150 year sentence for charges related to his Ponzi scheme.

Reports from the courtroom state that Madoff, the mastermind behind the largest ever Ponzi scheme, showed little to no emotion today when he learned that he would be spending the rest of his life in a jail cell. Due to federal sentencing guidelines, Madoff must serve at least 80% of his sentence, so he will not be eligible for parole until 2129.

Hedge fund manager Michael Regan has pleaded guilty to running a Ponzi scheme. Manager of the Massachusetts-based River Stream Fund, he admitted to defrauding around 70 investors. The fund held just shy of $20 million in assets ... despite the relatively meager $101,600 sitting in its accounts. The fund purported to return 20 percent a year since 2001, paying out $9 million in "profits" and returned capital.

Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford pleaded 'not guilty' today in a federal court arraignment to charges that he ran a $7 billion Ponzi scheme. Not only is Stanford being charged with running the Ponzi scheme, there are also allegations that he paid $100,000 to Leroy King, the former chief executive officer of Antigua's Financial Services Regulatory Commission.

This day has been coming for a while. It seems as though the government has been looking into Stanford's investment company since 2005, but it was only this past February that they shut down the Houston office of his investment company, Stanford Financial Group.

There have been a few stories about whether the Jewish community in the U.S. will have its reputation hurt by the fact that Bernie Madoff is Jewish. Today the top story at Reuters is about that subject. The media is letting the issue spread.

The news service writes "For American Jews, the Bernard Madoff scandal has not just caused deep financial pain. It also has been deeply personal."

The subject should be out of bounds. If Madoff's actions have done anything to damage the media or public views of Jews, let it stay "personal" to use the word that Reuters did. Writing about the matter only further raises an an aspect that is irrelevant and makes Madoff's religion the focus of growing coverage.

If Madoff were a Baptist the subject of religion would almost certainly not be a big part of the news coverage about his Ponzi scheme. The same would hold true if he were Catholic or Unitarian.

The media should stick to stories about the swindle. How did it happen? Who got hurt? Who will be brought to justice? What any of those has to do with Madoff being Jewish points at drawing a conclusion that it not there to be drawn.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7 Wall St.

New York City apparently has no lock on Ponzi schemes. Perhaps Madoff is just the tip of a large iceberg that runs the length of America.

According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), "Idaho securities regulators are investigating allegations that a money manager in the state operated a long-running Ponzi scheme that cost investors as much as $100 million."

In Idaho, the value of the dollar is such that $100 million is worth about the same as $50 billion is worth in NYC.

What the news shows is that the great bull market in assets from stocks to real estate clearly allowed a number of people to dupe investors by claiming remarkable returns In a flat market or a down market, claims like the ones that Madoff made would not have been believable.

As the Dow rose to 14,000, almost anything about making easy month could appear real. Now the chickens have come home to roost.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

In the U.S.'s decade of descent, its near-decade of policy errors, investors could no-doubt cite their nomination for financial or economic low point.

Enron, the Bear Stearns hedge fund defaults, the mismanagement of Lehman Brothers and AIG (NYSE: AIG), the to-date secretiveness of the TARP money allocation, Citigroup's (NYSE: C) missteps that now expose the U.S. government to potentially more than $200 billion in liabilities, or the myriad bad decisions by mortgage borrowers and lenders that sent the housing market into recession would, undoubtedly, be mentioned as candidates for the biggest scandal.

A few 'candid and frank' discussions in CT

Still, during a year-end, holiday trip to relatives in Connecticut, I received "a full and complete report," as we say in the news/publishing business, concerning what many people -- at least what many of my relatives -- feel is the biggest scandal or mistake. Now, my extended family is by no means a scientific survey, but it's a pretty good cross-section of the American public, comprised of high-powered professionals and typical employees; those who've done very well financially, and those who haven't done as well, with all age groups represented.

And what was everyone really peeved about? The alleged Ponzi scheme and rip-off masterminded/perpetrated by Bernard Madoff.

Welcome to Way Off Wall Street, a column dedicated to providing Main Street opinions on topics of interest to investors. Each installment highlights the views of Americans who are far removed from the canyons of Wall Street -- and who often see things more clearly as a result.

After reading nearly 400 publicly posted reader comments regarding the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scandal, I believe that I may have a good feel for the grass roots mood on the subject. In a nutshell, the average American internet crawler is thoroughly disgusted with our financial system and its regulatory agencies. They are fed up, strung out and unequivocally irate. As for Bernard Madoff himself, the overwhelming assertion is that he should be strung up immediately. That sentiment is not meant in a figurative sense either. People want Bernard Madoff publicly hanged, and they want it done with much fanfare in a place such as New York City's Central Park. Yes, this sounds rather coarse. Perhaps it's even uncivilized, but as the internet is my witness, this is what people are saying.

Very few of the comments I have read indicate a feeling that Madoff's investors simply got what they deserved. I did, however, read many statements regarding the fact that high level greed obviously forced many large eggs into one very questionable basket. I myself have not much pity for those investors who lost "everything" to Madoff's twisted dealings. It is my opinion that if investors don't have the sense to diversify, and thereby somewhat protect themselves, they are not very deserving of much wealth. Even my own paltry savings reside in no less than five separate accounts, however paltry.

This post is part of our feature on Money Losers of 2008. See all 20.

As we learn more about the scandal involving the investment businesses managed by Wall Street power broker Bernard Madoff, it's a tale of failure by government regulators and investors alike. Madoff saw a weakness in the system and took advantage of people and institutions for about $50 billion (we don't know the final tally yet because Madoff kept several sets of books and the courts need to sort out what's left).

Regulators got too cozy with a man whom they trusted so much that he served on a advisory committee for the SEC on investor information involving scams, while the entire time he was building a business that will probably hold a record for being Wall Street's largest Ponzi scheme. He also served as chairman of the NASDAQ Stock Market.

Investors, including investment advisers and large institutions, were taken in by his charms and overlooked the fact that steady returns, like the ones Madoff promised, were suspect. Indications are that some investment advisers who did their due diligence advised against investing money through Madoff.

Ever since the $50 billion Madoff Securities Ponzi scheme came to light, I have been wondering whether there are others out there that have yet to be discovered. While the facts of how Madoff was able to keep his scheme going remain elusive, it appears that a recent $7 billion cash call made it clear that he did not have enough cash on hand. If Madoff was indeed a Ponzi scheme, he would have needed to raise $7 billion from new investors to meet those redemption requests -- since he could not raise that much new money he folded his hand.

It is hard to believe that Madoff is the only scam artist out there. Why was Madoff able to pull it off for so long? Are there other funds with similar characteristics? Is James Simons' $35.4 billion (October 2007 assets under management) Renaissance Technologies such a fund? The answer to the last question is that it's possible but unlikely.

Since enough is not yet known about where Madoff's money came from and where it went, we don't know how he pulled it off. But, as I posted, there are four key elements that probably contributed:

• Unrealistically steady returns that others could not duplicate. Madoff reported 1% a month returns through a split conversion strategy that others could not duplicate but that investors wanted to believe was real;
• Lack of independent auditing. Madoff had a three-person audit firm -- one of whose members was a 78-year- old living in Florida;

The best business books are almost always the ones about scandal.

Success is great, but it's much more interesting to read about a convoluted web of lies designed to bilk investors out of $500 million over 20 years in what is possibly the largest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history (with the exception of Social Security).

In The Hit Charade: Lou Pearlman, Boy Bands, and the Biggest Ponzi Scheme in U.S. History, Radar reporter Tyler Gray examines boy band mogul Lou Perlman's illustrious career that involved deception from the beginning. It started with an airline that didn't own any planes but was able to raise hundreds of millions to fund a lavish lifestyle and later provide the start-up capital to form hit boy bands including N'SYNC, The Backstreet Boys, and O-Town.

Gray writes well, with an eye for what's interesting and relevant -- I read the entire book in an afternoon, and The Hit Charade isn't bogged down with the minutiae of the scam the way that so many of these books are. Instead it paints an interesting portrait of a complex charlatan -- Gray was the only reporter to interview Pearlman while he was behind bars.

What sets Pearlman apart from so many other frauds is that his impact is so enduring: He created the soundtrack for a generation of teenage girls, and paved the way for Justin Timberlake to become one of the biggest pop stars ever. Without Lou Pearlman, there never would have been this.