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“The harder I tried, the deeper a hole I dug for myself,” he said.

Madoff psychoanalysed himself by saying that he just did not want to fail. “I refused to accept the fact — could not accept the fact — that once in my life I failed. I could not admit that failure,” he said.

“I will live with this pain, with this torment, for the rest of my life. I live in a tormented state knowing the pain and suffering that I have created.

“People have accused me of being silent and unsympathetic. That is not true. People have accused my wife of being silent and unsympathetic.

“She cries herself to sleep every night knowing of all the suffering I have caused.”

In a moment of courtroom drama he then turned to face his victims and told them face-to-face: “I am sorry. I know that does not help you.”

The apology fell on deaf ears.

“When he turned around and said he was sorry, I was, like, ‘That’s all you can say? That’s it?’” said George Nierenberg, a film-maker. “I do not feel he’s any different.”

“I do not believe a word of what he would say,” said Ron Weinstein, another victim. “He is truly psychopathic.”

Because of the length of his sentence, Madoff will not qualify to serve his time in a “Club Fed”-style minimum-security prison camp with no perimeter fence.

The judge recommended that he be assigned to a prison in the north east of the United States. He is likely to be assigned to a low or medium-security institution such as Otisville, New York; Fort Dix, New Jersey; or Allenwood, Pennsylvania.

Ira Sorkin, his lawyer, had asked the judge for a sentence of 12 years that would have given Madoff a chance of release before he dies. But Judge Chin rejected the request, saying that there were no mitigating circumstances.

The judge noted that, although he had received several hundred letters from victims seeking a long sentence, no one had written a letter testifying to Madoff’s character or good works.

He also questioned whether Madoff had co-operated fully with the authorities, who are still probing what role his family and associates may have had in the epic fraud and trying to recover hidden funds.

“I simply do not get the sense that Mr Madoff has done all he could or told all that he knows,” he said.

Ruth Madoff, 68, who has agreed to forfeit all but $2.5 million of the couple’s fortune, broke her silence after the verdict.

“I am embarrassed and ashamed. Like everyone else, I feel betrayed and confused,” she said. “The man who committed this horrible fraud is not the man whom I have known for all these years.”

The 10 longest white-collar prison sentences

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