March 12, 2009 9:30 AM

Live Blogging the Madoff Hearing: The Circus in Foley Square

Posted by Brian Baxter

The circus in Foley Square in downtown Manhattan was in full swing this morning as Bernard Madoff arrived at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan courthouse a little before 7:30 a.m.

One victim of Madoff’s alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme walked down Worth Street surrounded by a phalanx of TV cameras. News choppers buzzed overhead. A woman in a passing car screamed, "Give it back Bernie!" at an amused group of bystanders corralled behind steel barricades set up by the New York Police Department and the U.S. Marshals Service.

While waiting on a epic security line with fellow reporters, we asked a court officer how today's crowd compares with the likes of the Martha Stewart trial and other headline-grabbing legal proceedings.

"I don’t know," he said flatly. "We've had a lot of big names come through here."

This is the Sovereign District after all. Bernie Madoff isn't the first and surely won't be the last to have his immediate future determined by a judge here.

Madoff is expected to enter the courtroom shortly. We've got a live closed-circuit video feed here in the third-floor pressroom (though not in the immediate radius of our computer). We'll do our best to keep you updated on the proceedings.

Stay tuned.

Photo: Getty Images

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