Notorious Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, who pleaded guilty to 11 financial crimes in 2009, is asking a judge to release him from a 150-year sentence so he could die at home, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

Madoff, 81, told the U.S. newspaper in a phone interview that he is in the end stages of kidney disease.

"I'm terminally ill," he said. "I've served. I've served 11 years already, and, quite frankly, I've suffered through it."

His remarks have aroused anger on the Internet. "Nope! He made his bed, he needs to sleep in it until the end!" a Brad Hales commented on Twitter. "How many people killed themselves due to this including his own son," tweeted a Paul C. "No rest for the wicked," tweeted a Beno.

Madoff was arrested in December 2008 for running a multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme -- an investment fraud promising high returns, with early investors paid off with money from later ones.

The financial swindler has been serving his sentence in a federal prison in Butner, the U.S. state of North Carolina, since July 2009, after he committed crimes including fraud, money laundering and perjury.

In July last year, he filed a request with the U.S. Department of Justice, seeking to shorten his sentence and "finish his life in freedom." 

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