Not a risk? Really?

Rico says he wonders how long Madoff would stay out of jail if he was, say, a poor black drug dealer who'd violated a judge's bail order? About as long as it took the deputies to handcuff him and drag him to the car, one suspects. They say there's no different justice for the rich, but they're wrong, as The New York Times article by Diana Henriques explains:

A federal magistrate refused on Monday a government request that Bernard L. Madoff be jailed until he can be tried on charges of operating a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, saying that the government had not proved that he was a flight risk or a security risk. The ruling, by Magistrate Judge Ronald L. Ellis, allows Mr. Madoff to remain in his Manhattan apartment, wearing an electronic monitor device and being watched around the clock by a security team paid for by his wife. Prosecutors had asked the court to revoke Mr. Madoff’s $10,000,000 bail, secured by various family homes held in his wife’s name, after he violated a court-ordered asset freeze by mailing out roughly one million dollars in expensive watches and jewelry to family and friends on Christmas Eve.
“The decision speaks for itself, and we intend to comply with all the conditions of his bail,” said Ira Lee Sorkin, a lawyer for Mr. Madoff, after the ruling was released. “But we have no comment with respect to its impact on his day-to-day life.”
The judge did place additional restrictions on the bail requirements, many of which had already been imposed by Judge Louis L. Stanton of United States District Court, who is handling the civil suit. “For the government’s detention application to succeed,” Judge Ellis wrote, “the court would have to find that the government has met its burden of showing, by clear and convincing evidence, that no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure the safety of any other person and the community; or by a preponderance of the evidence, that there is no condition or combination of conditions that would reasonably assure the ‘presence of the defendant at trial if released.’ The court finds that the government has failed to meet its burden to either ground,” the ruling said.
Included in the restrictions is one that bars Mr. Madoff from transferring any assets. Mr. Madoff’s wife, Ruth, must also comply with restrictions on the transfer of assets. In addition, the ruling said, Mr. Madoff shall compile an inventory of all “valuable portable items” in his Manhattan apartment and give it to the government. Casale Associates or another security company approved by the government must check the inventory every two weeks, the judge said. Mr. Madoff and the government shall agree on a threshold value of the items within a week. The security firm will also be required to examine all outgoing mail to assure no property has been transferred. Mr. Madoff was charged last month with securities fraud but has remained free since posting bail.
So far, Mr. Madoff has not been indicted, but has been charged in a criminal complaint with a single count of securities fraud. Typically, such complaints contain fewer details about the crime than a formal indictment does.
Under federal court rules, Monday would have been the deadline for the prosecution to indict Mr. Madoff or submit to a preliminary hearing to explain to a judge why a formal indictment had not yet been issued. On Friday, lawyers for Mr. Madoff agreed to a 30-day extension of that deadline.
Prosecutors first went to court last week to have Mr. Madoff’s bail revoked for violating the terms of his bail, one of which was a requirement not to dispose of any assets. Prosecutors said that Mr. Madoff and his wife sent at least a million dollars worth of jewelry as gifts to family members and friends. In addition, prosecutors said, Mr. Madoff had plans to transfer $200 million to $300 million of investors’ money to family members and friends. When authorities searched Mr. Madoff’s office desk, they found $173 million in signed checks ready to be sent off. The packages Mr. Madoff sent, prosecutors said, contained thirteen watches, four diamond brooches, a jade necklace, two sets of cufflinks, and other jewelry. Most of the items sent were recovered.
In a response, Mr. Sorkin and Daniel Horwitz, who represent Mr. Madoff, have argued that jailing him would be unfair and wrong. Mr. Madoff is already being watched around the clock, both for his protection and to prevent flight, and has an electronic monitoring device, his lawyers wrote. In addition, they said, Mr. Madoff is too widely known at this point and too disliked to get very far in any effort to flee. Instead of jail, they said, Mr. Madoff would accept having his property inventoried and all his outgoing mail checked to make sure he did not try to transfer valuables again.
Mr. Madoff’s lawyers characterized the jewelry he sent as “a few sentimental personal items". Mr. and Mrs. Madoff’s decision to mail it, they said, was an honest mistake. “Mr. Madoff gathered a number of watches that he had collected over the course of years, knowing that, due to the sudden change in his circumstances, he would never have an occasion to wear these watches again. To Mr. and Mrs. Madoff, the value of these items was purely sentimental,” the lawyers wrote.
In aking for bail revocation at a hearing a week ago, Marc O. Litt, an assistant United States attorney, said: “The case against the defendant is strong and it continues to grow stronger as the government’s investigation continues. Given the defendant’s age, the length of the likely sentence, the strength of the proof against the defendant, including his confessions, these facts present a clear risk of flight.”
Mr. Madoff told FBI agents last month that he had overseen a financial fraud and estimated that it had cost investors as much as $50 billion, according to the criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan. The fraud was continuing just days before Mr. Madoff confessed it to the FBI, according to a lawsuit filed by a New York company that asserts Mr. Madoff took in $10 million from it on 5 December.
A government-appointed receiver has now taken over his firm, and agents from the Securities and Exchange Commission and FBI investigators are conducting a far-flung investigation to see who may have aided Mr. Madoff. Last week, the trustee overseeing the liquidation of Mr. Madoff’s firm sent 8,000 claim forms to people who may have invested with Mr. Madoff, asking them to detail what they believe they are owed.

Rico says it's a shame that rich people get so insulated from reality that a million bucks worth of watches comes to have "purely sentimental value". But jailing him would be unfair and wrong? No, jailing Rico would be unfair and wrong; jailing Madoff would be just about perfect.