CHRIS CHURCHILL: Release Bernie Madoff? Victim says no

Bernie Madoff is among the great villains of 21st century American life, a man whose thievery revealed an obscene greed and a withered soul.

In 2009, Madoff was given a 150-year prison sentence for masterminding a massive Ponzi scheme that robbed thousands of innocent Americans of their savings and retirements.

"He deserves what he got," Morrey Berkwitz, a retired dentist in Niskayuna, told me in 2009.

Berkwitz and his wife Hetty had good reason to feel that way. Madoff had stolen their savings and retirement money, and the 150-year sentence felt like at least a small satisfaction and a bit of justice.

The reason? He's sick with liver disease and has, he says, just 18 months to live.

I'll admit I have sympathy for the notion of letting dying prisoners free. Our religions teach us to practice forgiveness and compassion, even for the worst among us. In this punitive nation of mass incarceration, we keep too many in jail for too long.

What good does it really do to keep feeble old men in prison? A dying prisoner is no threat to anybody. A guy on his deathbed is not going to recommit his crimes.

Of course, given the cruelties of our health care system, releasing dying prisoners would in some cases be the inhumane thing to do. They're better off where they are.

But Madoff wants out.

I doubt any of you are struggling to read through tears. Sympathy for Madoff might not be precisely akin to sympathy for the devil, but it's close enough.

I decided to reach out to Morrey and Hetty to hear what they thought of allowing Madoff, now 81, to walk free.

I reached Hetty at her home in Florida, and she told me Morrey passed away several years ago. He was in his 80s, but Hetty believes he'd be alive today if not for Madoff.

"My husband was an honest and good man," Hetty said. "There wasn't a day that he didn't think about it and worry, and it finally got to him."

Part of what got to Morrey is that he had encouraged friends and family to invest with Madoff, too, and so he felt responsible when they were also fleeced.

Some Madoff investors got at least some of their money returned, but that wasn't the case for the Berkwitzes. Hetty wasn't sure of the exact amount, she figured Madoff took them for $500,000 or so.

"Everything we had, we put into it," Hetty told me. "Which was stupid, but we did it. We were trusting."

The Berkwitzes lives were never the same. While Hetty stressed that she and Morrey remained better off than many other Americans, she noted that many of their plans and pleasures _ they loved to travel _ were dashed.

"I don't go out," Hetty said. "I don't buy anything. I have to watch what I do."

So, release Madoff from prison? Hetty isn't buying it.

"Look at all the deaths he caused," she said. "He has caused so much distress and illness. Terrible."

"Madoff does not dispute the severity of his crimes nor does he seek to minimize the suffering of his victims," his attorney wrote. "Madoff has expressed remorse for his crimes."

Hetty said she's a kind and compassionate person who feels for the suffering of others. If Madoff had just a few weeks or months to live, she said, she would probably be OK with his release.

What Hetty doesn't want, she said, is for Madoff to be able to enjoy an extended time away of prison and to return to something like a normal life. Why should he get that privilege, Hetty asked, when he stole it from so many others?

She makes a good point.