The federal judge overseeing the trial of Bernard Madoff said he would recommend the man who pulled off the biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history serve out his sentence in the Northeast. Instead, Mr. Madoff landed in a prison nearly 500 miles away from his New York home, in North Carolina.

How Mr. Madoff ended up in a medium-security facility at Butner Federal Correctional Center could remain a mystery. The Bureau of Prisons won’t discuss the placement of specific inmates, and even veteran attorneys are often left to scratch their heads at why their clients wind up in particular facilities.

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