Bernie Madoff: Dying of Cancer?
Bernie Madoff is not doing well. Not just because he's behind bars, where he'll remain for the rest of his life. But because he's suffering from pancreatic cancer and "doesn't have long to live," say several of his fellow inmates who spoke with the Post:
Madoff, who is serving 150 years at a North Carolina federal lockup after pleading guilty to swindling more than $65 billion, has been telling fellow inmates he does not have much longer to live.
"He's been taking about 20 pills a day for his cancer," said one inmate.
"He talks about it all the time. He's not doing very well."
But hope is not lost. If the pills don't work, maybe he'll have luck with Native American purification ceremonies that cleanse both body and mind:
Meanwhile, a bare-chested Bernie has been killing time at the prison participating in Native American religious purification ceremonies held at an on-grounds "sweat lodge," other sources said...
... It is unclear whether the 71-year-old Madoff checked out the ceremony because of health reasons. For centuries, Native Americans have used sweat lodges to help detoxify the body mentally, spiritually and physically.
The Post also reports in addition to the Native Americans he'd been hanging out with, Bernie's also made friends with members of the prison's gay community, although "the relationships are purely platonic." It's something of a novel strategy, apparently:
In prison, you stick to your own kind, but he's doing the exact opposite by hanging with the Indians and [homosexuals]—so who is going to have his back?" wondered one jailbird.
Well, it wasn't as if he was going to find too many other elderly Jewish financiers to befriend, was he?
