Bernard Madoff got into a fight in the prison yard with another inmate over the stock market – and won, the New York Post reported, quoting eyewitnesses.
The 71 year-old Ponzi schemer, who is serving 150 years at the Butner, NC federal prison, got into a heated argument about the state of the market with another inmate in his 60s, inmates told the New York Post.
The two were in a shouting match that got so heated the inmate pushed Madoff, who shoved back with both hands and made his attacker stagger. Madoff was hovering over his attacker red-faced and glaring, eyewitnesses told the paper.
"I didn't think Bernie had it in him. He got the best of him; he was really aggressive, and the other guy was in shock that he fought back," an inmate told the New York Post.
The fight happened near a ball field in front of about 20 inmates during a rare time when prison guards weren't watching. An inmate said the two were lucky they weren't seen by guards as they would have been sent to solitary confinement.
The two were seen the next day talking, the paper said.