Maddoff victims will not forgive

"My husband wasn't exactly a dumb guy. He was a good businessman," said Wally, 91. "He trusted Madoff and decided to invest with him."

But Irving Wally's investment vanished last December when Madoff's infamous Ponzi scheme —- paying off old investors with money collected from new clients —- crashed and Wally watched the financier, who prosecutors now say bilked investors out of about $65 billion, on TV as he was led off to jail in handcuffs.

Wally's stepson, Brian Feldman, said last week his stepfather never got over that. Eighty-eight years old and in ill health, Irving Wally died about a week later.

"He had lost his will to live when he realized his life saving were gone," Feldman said.

On Monday, Madoff is scheduled to be sentenced in a New York federal courtroom for a financial scam so unseemly, it is almost sexy in its news appeal. His lawyer has asked the judge to go easy and sentence Madoff, 71, to 12 years in prison.

But ask Beatrice Wally what she thinks about going light on the smooth operating financier, the man who charmed investors by playing hard to get.

"He needs to spend the rest of his life in prison, however long that is," she said. "He destroyed people's lives."

Her sentiment is shared by the few Atlanta Madoff investors —- court records show he has 27 clients in metro Atlanta —- who would comment last week on the case and their investments.

Lynn Sustak told WSB radio last March that she and husband Bob lost $1 million since they started investing with Madoff's firm six years ago. They did not return phone calls seeking comment for this story.

According to court records, Lynn Sustak wrote a letter to the U.S. District Court Judge in Madoff's case, Denny Chin, urging him to hand down a stiff sentence.

Madoff committed a "terrible crime against mankind," she wrote the judge. "We feel Mr. Madoff should be made to spend all of his 'retirement' in federal prison."

Randi Cohn confirmed last week that she and her mother, Anna, lost all the retirement money they invested with Madoff over the last 16 years, but she didn't want to talk about it: "I'm all talked out," she said.

The Cohns, like the Wallys, received statements every month showing their investments were sound, as did another Atlanta victim, Marilyn Gross, who said the monthly updates were reassuring.

"You have to realize the statements were meticulous," she said. "There was absolutely nothing to indicate anything wrong. And the stocks —- Chevron, Exxon, Procter & Gamble —- they were not high risk. He [Madoff] is as shrewd as shrewd can be."

Gross declined to discuss in detail her dealings with Madoff's firm, nor would she reveal how much she invested or lost.

Another Madoff client, according to court records, Andrew T. Heller, the vice chairman of Turner Broadcasting System, declined comment through a TBS spokesperson. At least one Atlanta Madoff client, Dr. Steven L. Morganstern, who runs the Morganstern Urology Clinic in Buckhead, is party to a lawsuit filed in April to force Madoff into involuntary bankruptcy to try to collect money from his remaining assets.

According to court records, Morganstern has a claim of $3.49 million against Madoff. Neither Morganstern, nor his New York attorneys, would comment for this story.

But some Atlanta Madoff investors got out before the fall.

Estelle Rosenberg, of Avondale, last week confirmed that she and her husband, Abraham, once invested with Madoff but she said they pulled their money out "years ago."

She would not say how much they invested. Nor would she say why she and her late husband withdrew their money from a scheme that would drain billions of dollars from thousands of other investors.

"I'm not a victim," she said. "And I don't want to talk about it."