High-profile crime: A modern history
Michael Milken virtually invented the market for high-risk, high-yield junk bonds, which became the favored holdings of some huge savings and loans that later failed in the 1980s. He was convicted of securities fraud and released from federal prison in January 1993 after serving 22 months of a 10-year sentence. (Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)
Steve Madden, center, founder of the shoe company bearing his name, leaves federal court after pleading guilty to charges of securities fraud and money laundering in May 2001. He was sentenced to 41 months in prison in 2002. (Shawn Baldwin / Associated Press)
Former Tyco International CEO L. Dennis Kozlowski arrives for his bail hearing in September 2002 after he and former chief finance officer Mark Swartz were charged with stealing $170 million in company loans and other funds, and obtaining more than $430 million through fraudulent sales of securities. Kozlowski and Swartz were convicted in June 2005 and sentenced later that year to as many as 25 years in prison. (Timothy A. Clary / AFP/Getty Images)
ImClone Systems founder Sam Waksal leaves a federal court in June 2003 after being sentenced to seven years in prison for an insider-trading scandal involving the company’s cancer drug Erbitux. (Louis Lanzano / Associated Press)
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John Rigas, left, founder and former CEO of cable TV giant Adelphia Communications, and his son, Timothy, leave a federal court in March 2004. Rigas and his son, the company’s former chief financial officer, were convicted in 2004 on charges including securities, wire and bank fraud, and in 2005 received prison sentences of 15 years and 20 years, respectively. (Louis Lanzano / Associated Press)
Media entrepreneur Martha Stewart was accused of trying to cover up her December 2001 sale of ImClone stock after getting an insider tip and lying to investigators about it. In 2004, Stewart and her broker, Peter Bacanovic, were convicted of conspiracy, perjury, obstruction and lying to investigators, and were sentenced to five months in prison and five months of home confinement. (Louis Lanzano / Associated Press)
Former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay is led into federal court in July 2004. He was convicted in May 2006 of securities fraud, conspiracy and lying to banks in a corruption case that led to the energy company’s demise. The case -- one of the worst frauds in business history -- is synonymous with willful corporate fraud and corruption. Lay died in July 2006 before he could be sentenced. (Michael Stravato / Associated Press)
Former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers was convicted in 2005 of overseeing the $11-billion WorldCom fraud that bankrupted the company. He was sentenced four months later to 25 years in prison. (Louis Lanzano / Associated Press)
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Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, center, was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison in 2006 after being convicted earlier that year of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and lying to auditors in the corruption scandal that rocked the business world. (David J. Phillip / Associated Press)
Former Qwest Communications CEO Joe Nacchio and his wife, Anne Esker, in 2007. A federal appeals court in late February reinstated Nacchio’s 2007 insider-trading conviction and said that he could be ordered to begin serving a six-year prison sentence. (David Zalubowski / Associated Press)
Bernard L. Madoff arrives at the federal court in Manhattan. A chastened and contrite Madoff was taken off to jail Thursday after pleading guilty to running a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, which he said began in the 1990s during an economic downturn. (Louis Lanzano / Associated Press)
