The Madoff scandal represents the largest financial fraud in business history. Thousands of investors, including the elderly, celebrities, charitable organizations, and several financially sophisticated investment funds, lost billions of dollars as a result of a massive Ponzi scheme perpetrated by Bernie Madoff. As a result of his actions, he was sentenced in 2009 to 150 years in federal prison. The following will outline the life and career of Bernie Madoff, the nature of the scandal and its unraveling, the significant harm his actions caused to so many individuals, the inability of government regulators to discover the fraud, and the possible moral rationalizations that may have supported such actions.