Bernard Madoff, who is serving 150 years in prison for defrauding investors of billions of dollars, hasn’t been diagnosed with cancer and isn’t terminally ill as a newspaper reported, the Federal Bureau of Prisons said.
The New York Post reported Monday that Madoff was dying from cancer and that there were rumors he had pancreatic cancer.
“While the N.Y. Post story is full of inaccuracies, and we can’t specifically address all of them, we can tell you that Bernie Madoff is not terminally ill, and has not been diagnosed with cancer,” Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Traci Bil lingsley said in a statement.
Madoff, 71, is in a medium-security federal prison in Butner, N.C., which has a medical center. He pleaded guilty in March to 11 fraud and money-laundering counts and got the maximum sentence on each, to be served consecutively.
Prosecutors said the money manager told clients they had as much as $65 billion invested with him. The government has documented losses of about $13 billion.
“I don’t discuss my client’s physical or mental condition,” his defense attorney, Ira Sorkin, said Monday.
