A Manhattan federal judge on Thursday denied Bernard Madoff’s request for compassionate release, all but ensuring that the architect of the largest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history would die while serving out his 150-year sentence in prison.

Madoff, now 81 years old and suffering from end-stage renal failure, in February asked U.S. District Judge Denny Chin of the Southern District of New York to approve his release from Butner Federal Medical Center in North Carolina, saying that doctors there had told him he had less than 18 months to live.