Update on Bernie Madoff, Inmate No. 61727-054

Bernie seems to have settled in nicely to his new home in Camp Fluffy at Butner, NC.

According to the NY Post, Madoff seems to be very well admired on the cell block. Madoff teaches prisoners the ins and outs of business, and hustles them for what he needs.

Colleagues, lawyers and inmates tell the magazine that Inmate No. 61727-054 generally seems content. His cellblock is known as "Camp Fluffy," and prisoners have use of a gym, library, pool tables and a sweat lodge. There are no bars on the windows.

Madoff likes to read novels by John Grisham and Dean Koontz, and once suggested he be put in charge of the budget for the prison landscaping crew, reminding one supervisor that he had run Nasdaq.

The response: "Hell, no."

Inmates ask him for autographs, which he refuses to sign because he thinks they'll wind up on eBay, and he doesn't think it's fair that others should make money off him.

Madoff thinks nothing of telling his fellow inmates that he regularly dropped as much as $200,000 on a wristwatch. In turn, drug dealers and other criminals who see themselves as entrepreneurs regularly solicit business advice from Madoff, who is happy to give it.

Now, says the magazine, Madoff lives on $290 a month. His favorite purchases are mac and cheese (60 cents), cans of Diet Coke (45 cents) and a Timex watch ($41.65).

One inmate does laundry for the others for $10 a month, but Madoff hustled him down to $8.

Unfortunately, it seems prison has not made him rethink his ways and regret his actions. he seems fairly proud of what he accomplished for so long:

Madoff, 71, has become a folk hero to most of his fellow inmates -- but when one inmate lashed out at the disgraced Ponzi schemer for his $65 billion theft, Madoff barked: "F- - - my victims. I carried them for 20 years, and now I'm doing 150 years," New York magazine reports in its issue on sale tomorrow.

When another convict told Madoff that stealing from old ladies was "kind of f- - -ed up," Madoff coolly replied, "Well, that's what I did."

Another former convict told the magazine that Madoff once said he could spin a globe, put his finger anywhere on it, "and chances are he had a house there or he'd been there."

Yet another prisoner recalled watching a "60 Minutes" segment about Madoff with Madoff, and remarking, admiringly, that he'd bilked his clients for millions.

Madoff corrected him: "No, billions."

His massive scheme has some inmates virtually worshipping him as a criminal legend who ultimately wound up a success, according to their twisted worldview.

"If I'd lived that well for 70 years, I wouldn't care that I ended up in prison," one said.