Convicted fraudster Russell Wasendorf Sr. knows where he will die behind bars. (AP)
Russell Wasendorf Sr., who earned the nickname “Midwest Madoff” for running a 20-year fraud from his Iowa brokerage, was sentenced to a whopping 50-year prison term yesterday — the most the judge could impose.
“I feel I fully deserve whatever sentence I am given,” a noticeably withered Wasendorf told federal Judge Linda Reade.
Few showed up to support the pathetic, disgraced businessman — who attempted suicide in his office parking lot as his fraud unraveled.
One supporter was the 64-year-old former local business leader’s pastor, Linda Livingston, who told the judge to go easy on Wasendorf — whose $250 million scam robbed workaday folks of their hard-earned savings — because he has been sick.
Also, David Nagle, a former US congressman, begged the judge for mercy, citing Wasendorf’s generosity.
But Reade wasn’t buying it.
“It’s easy to be generous with other people’s money,” she said as she got ready to throw the book at him — including an order to repay the $215.5 million he swiped from customers.
Wasendorf covered up his fraud in a very low-tech way — via Photoshopped statements and a rented post office box, prosecutors said.
The Midwest Madoff used the money to live large and become a pillar of the small town of Cedar Falls, where his Peregrine Financial Group was based.
“I am satisfied,” Joe Berger, a ripped-off Peregrine customer said of the sentencing. “I can’t be happy about this because I am still nursing a $100,000 wound that will never heal,” he said.
Wasendorf’s son, Russ Wasendorf Jr., wasn’t present at the sentencing and wasn’t among those asking the judge for leniency.
“I wish I could somehow fix what he did, but it is impossibly large and the damage too immense,” the son said in a statement.
With Post wires