'Ponzi scheme' mastermind Madoff won't appeal 150-yr sentence

Bernard Madoff, who was charged with 11 criminal counts in the biggest investment fraud in history, won't appeal his 150-year prison sentence, his attorney has said.

Bernard Madoff, who was charged with 11 criminal counts in the biggest investment fraud in history, won't appeal his 150-year prison sentence, his attorney has said.

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Madoff, 71, was sentenced June 29 for masterminding the largest US Ponzi scheme - a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors rather than from any actual profit earned.

"We are not going to be appealing," Madoff's main lawyer Ira Lee Sorkin, said Thursday. "That's our decision and we have no further comment."

Prosecutors said Madoff's clients invested as much as $65 billion in the scheme. The government has so far documented losses of about $13 billion.

Madoff is now in a prison, some 112 km northwest of the New York City.