Palm Beach hails 150-year sentence for Madoff

PALM BEACH, Florida (Reuters) - From bars haunted by private wealth managers to luxury shops damaged by the fallout of the scandal, residents of the rich Florida seaside town where money manager Bernard Madoff found many of his victims applauded his stiff sentence on Monday.

"I think he defrauded a lot of people in this town, and I think his intentions were evil," said Joanne McClellan, owner of Trousseau, a vintage linens shop on Royal Poinciana Way, when asked about the 150-year prison term.

Madoff found many investors for his multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme at the nearby Palm Beach Country Club, an oceanfront hideaway founded by Jews who had been excluded from other clubs here.

The scheme collapsed last December, devastating families and charitable foundations in this sunny playground, one of America's richest towns.

The effect rippled through the local economy. McClellan said her business took a "significant" hit from the twin impact of Madoff and the U.S. economic downturn.

"A lot of our customers were affected and that affected us," she said. The town has a permanent population of 10,000, but that triples in the winter.

Recalling that a money manager's suicide had been blamed on Madoff's fraud, McClellan said: "As far as I'm concerned, he should be judged as a murderer."

"He hurt us all, he really did," said her daughter and business partner, Linda McClellan. "I think we will bounce back, but I don't think it's going to be quickly."

At Testa's restaurant, a smattering of applause greeted television news reports on the sentencing.

"What's that, a year for every 3 billion he stole?" a waiter asked.

"The sentence should have been far longer," said Cyril Segall, a 30-year resident of Palm Beach, as she chatted with her family about Madoff's fate.

"I would like anything that would have wiped that smirk off his face. But whatever, he's going to stay in prison until he dies."

Madoff's nearby winter getaway, a $9 million home on the Intracoastal Waterway, stands behind a padlocked chain. Clumps of weeds and grass compete for space in the circular gravel front drive. Leaves float in the pool.

"I think he should have gotten a thousand years," said Karen Beros, 44, who commutes to Palm Beach for work from nearby Wellington. "And I think people should get their money back. So many people in this town worked all their lives and now it's all gone."

Bette Greenfield, a resident of nearby Deerfield Beach, lost about $300,000 invested with Madoff by her father.

At 72, she has been forced to take a job in the travel industry to make a living.

"I'm thrilled about the sentence, and I'm thrilled that they've taken away the millions from his wife," Greenfield said. "It's something that he really, really, really deserved. But I don't really think he understands what he's done."

Of her own return to the work force, Greenfield said: "I've seen that no matter how bad things get, you can survive it."

The largest fraud in U.S. history is believed to have cost Jewish charities and family foundations billions of dollars.

The Jewish Federation of Palm Beach declined to comment on the length of Madoff's sentence, but said: "We hope that people who suffered such devastating financial losses, many of whom lived in Palm Beach County, will be able to find closure and rebuild their lives now that Mr. Madoff has been sentenced."

(Editing by Pascal Fletcher, Toni Reinhold)