Watch your back, Bernie!
Bernard Madoff’s fellow inmates at a North Carolina federal prison — where the Ponzi schemer arrived just last week — are discussing beating him up to boost their jailhouse reputations, The Post has learned.
“Some of the guys were talking about smacking him around a little, just to get the notoriety of it,” said a source who has a relative locked up with the 71-year-old Madoff.
But other convicts have no beef with Madoff and are even a bit impressed by him and the way he has handled himself since arriving at the Butner, NC, prison complex, the source said.
Some of his fellow inmates, in fact, respect him for being a stand-up guy who pleaded guilty without implicating any of the other people strongly suspected of helping him pull off the fraud that swindled more than 1,000 people out of more than $65 billion over two decades.
“He got a lot of respect from other inmates because he didn’t tell on anybody, he didn’t take everybody down with him,” the source said.
“Some of the inmates admired that.”
The source provided the first glimpse into Madoff’s life behind bars — revealing his sadness at ruining his wife Ruth’s life, his new “job” and his new diet.
Every day’s a bad hair day for Bernie, who was shocked at seeing how much his hair had grown and how unkempt it has looked since he was incarcerated in March.
“When I finally looked in the mirror, I scared myself, because I haven’t seen myself in four months, and my hair was everywhere,” Madoff told fellow inmates last week.
Madoff entered Butner on Tuesday after a nearly 40-hour trip that began at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan, where he had been locked up since pleading guilty in March.
Madoff now is being housed at Butner’s medium-security facility No. 1 — one of four lockups at the prison, which is considered one of the cushiest places to do time in the federal correction system.
The huge, gray octagonal facility sits off a country road behind a high fence topped by barbed wire.
Most of the inmates in No. 1 are, like Madoff, white-collar criminals who do not have a propensity for violence.
At his previous residence, the Metropolitan Correctional Center, Madoff was kept in “the hole,” a unit for high-profile prisoners, including terrorists, who are allowed minimal human contact during the day.
But at Butner — about a half-hour’s drive from the capital city of Raleigh — Madoff is in a cell in a unit where he is in contact with fellow prisoners throughout the day.
“Everyone knows who he is,” the source said of Madoff, who was sentenced to 150 years in prison on June 29.
Since he arrived at Butner, Madoff has only once shown emotion over the impact of his crime, the source said.
“He said that his wife was mad at him because the paparazzi won’t leave her alone,” the source said, adding Madoff got teary-eyed while making the admission.
Although despised by the public outside, Madoff has gotten good marks inside Butner for falling into the routine without any apparent problems.
He quickly was assigned a job in the prison’s engraving section, where he makes desk and door nameplates from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. each day, the source said.
And, as soon as he could, Madoff joined fellow inmates in “the yard” for daily recreation sessions.
During one such session last week, Madoff was hanging out with other inmates watching prisoners play dominoes, the source said.
And he’s eating — without complaint — the food served in the prison cafeteria.
Last Thursday, Madoff tucked into a fish filet with macaroni and cheese — a dramatic change from the fare offered in the high-end Gotham restaurants he used to frequent.
At some point, however, Madoff will be allowed to use his prison earnings to buy food from the facility’s canteen — known in-house as the “cantina” — and cook it in his cell.
Another change for Madoff is his wardrobe.
Instead of custom-made suits worth thousands of dollars, Madoff is now walking around in sweatpants and T-shirts, just like any other jailbird.
“He fits in perfectly. He doesn’t have a problem with anybody,” the source said.
Madoff has made things easier on himself by dropping the arrogant attitude he often displayed to subordinates and prospective clients when he was running his Ponzi scheme out of his now-defunct Manhattan firm.
“He doesn’t act like he’s better” than the other inmates, the source said. “But he does hold his head up.
“If you didn’t know who he was, you probably wouldn’t know any better,” the source said.
“He blends in.”
“He’s a regular dude,” the source said. “He’s a really good guy, he’s nice.”