Bernard Madoff, the former NASDAQ chairman who was arrested in 2008 for operating a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, will not be released early from his 150-year prison sentence. Madoff had requested to be released in February after learning he has terminal kidney failure and less than two years to live. U.S. District Court Judge Denny Chin, who sentenced Madoff to 150-years in prison in 2009, rejected Madoff’s request. More than 500 of Madoff’s victims wrote to the court regarding the request, and 96 percent of those argued against his early release.

“When I sentenced Mr. Madoff in 2009, it was fully my intent that he live out the rest of his life in prison,” Chin said in his ruling. “Nothing has happened in the 11 years since to change my thinking.”