Bernie Madoff stole my dad’s money – and his life The most American of scandals surrounding the largest Ponzi scheme in history changed Willard Foxton's world forever Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison I heard about Bernie Madoff’s death this week the same way I heard about my father’s suicide – in both cases, my phone rang out of the blue in the middle of the workday, a relative told me the news and, all of a sudden, my world changed. Both times, it left me numb. I’d always thought my father Bill – a bear of a man with a handlebar moustache and a row of gallantry medals earned on far flung fields from Belfast to Bosnia – was invincible. His friends told me that when he’d lost his arm in combat, his reaction had been to make a joke about losing his Rolex.