James Madison vs. Bernie Madoff March Madness Bankruptcy Brackets

Welcome to the third round of March Madness Bankruptcy Brackets. In today’s video we’re going to find out which celebrity debtors will win the Automatic Stay Regional and move on to the final four, where voters will decide who is the world’s greatest debtor.

In this match James Madison will take on heavy favorite Bernie Madoff. Madison, the framer of the U.S. Constitution, fell into financial trouble when he married his much younger wife and needed to bail out Dolley’s gambling, womanizing son Payne Todd from debtor’s prison. Madison needed to sell half his Montpelier plantation and his famous widow became destitute. Bernie Madoff found himself thrown into bankruptcy after fleecing billions of dollars from thousands of trusting investors and is now serving 150 years in federal prison. During this time Madoff’s son committed suicide and his bankruptcy trustee sued Madoff’s friends, family and early investors to recover over 5 billion dollars for Madoff’s victims.

To get to the Elite Eight Madison needed to overcome Olympian Dorothy Hamill and fellow president Abraham Lincoln. Madoff defeated Real Housewife Teresa Giudice and in a slugfest of heavy favorites, Dogfighting Quarterback Michael Vick. Concidentally, Madoff, Giudice and Vick are all convicted federal convicts.

In their earlier matches, Madison won by a total of 12 points, while Madoff obliterated his opponents by more than 18. More importantly, the legal issues involved greatly favor Madoff. For Madison, the history of his stepson’s moral and financial dissipation, ending in debtor’s prison and the quick sale of a family estate are interesting, but these elements do not match the gravity of Bernie Madoff’s saga. Corruption on the highest level of finance, SEC governance, the ability to throw a debtor into involuntary bankruptcy and a trustee’s recovery of stolen billions are compelling. Adding to these are the tragedy of his son’s suicide and his own lifelong prison sentence. There can be no doubt that Bernie Madoff soundly trumped the great president James Madison and will move on to the final four as the champion of the Automatic Stay Regional.