Ruth Madoff: An Enigma

I knew a woman, whose husband ran a ponzi scheme, much smaller than Madoff's but still a ponzi scheme. The woman had absolutely no idea that her husband was a crook, who was defrauding all their friends, people at their church, including the preacher, her parents, and his own parents, among others, until the day that agents showed up to raid their home and arrest him. Like Ruth, she even occasionally worked in his office, but she never looked at the books, or questioned her husband about the business. She just thought he was a genius at making money. So I can believe that Ruth Madoff didn't know what was going on.

Agree R1

I don't believe for one second that she didn't know something was wrong. People like Ruth Madoff (and likely R1's example) don't care how the $$$ comes in as long as it does, and they're not so stupid that they don't suspect something is off, and pay it no heed as long as they don't get caught.

Blue Jasmine is an interesting take on a Ruth Madoff type.

R3 The way a ponzi scheme works, you would have no reason to suspect something is off, until it collapses, unless you are involved in the record keeping. As long as new victims are paying in, everything is fine. And if you are constantly getting new clients, that is seen as a sign of having a good business. And, how many people really pay attention to their spouse's work?

It isn't like money laundering, where you would have to be blind not to see something is wrong. Like if your husband owned a car wash, but was clearing millions of dollars a year, you would have to know something was up. But if your husband is running some sort of money management business and is constantly landing new clients, you would expect to be living well off. Especially if his clients are happy.

It was that $10 million transfer that settled it for me.

She’s living well , even if she has no friends. She has plenty of money and delux housing.

Sometimes I'm sure she didn't know. But, if she did know, what was she going to do? I've thought that Ruth may have found out in the 80s. After the 80s, it seems like they tried to keep a low profile. It was as if they money didn't really mean anything to them anymore, they were just in a holding pattern. They never again bought a big ticket item, like another house or apartment, something that would draw attention. They had super expensive yachts, but you wouldn't give them a second look, looked like plain fishing boats. They kept what they had and didn't change anything. Their homes were an 80s time warp. They did give their sons money to buy houses and apartments, but their sons worked in the business and running a billion dollar empire, it might be more suspicious to not buy your kids houses and apartments.

Blue Jasmine is fabulous.

I feel badly for her because I don't think she knew. And now she's all alone, has no money, is living in a shitty rental I think somewhere outside of Boston and was married to someone who caused immense pain for pretty much everyone in their circle. And both her sons are dead, and she'll have to live with that for the rest of her life.

r5 That's good. If his clients are always happy...

Many of Madoff's biggest clients were in on the fraud. Several took out hundreds of millions more than they put in. They knew he was faking documents and would conveniently show losses in their Madoff accounts to the IRS.

Blue Jasmine is a Woody Allen movie starring Cate Blanchette and Alec Baldwin. Alec is a Wall Street tycoon, who turns out to be a fraud. His wife, Cate, is forced to leave her fabulous Upper East Side apartment and move to San Francisco to live with her waitress sister and her kids in a very small apartment. She spends her last few dollars buying a first class ticket for her flight to San Francisco. Her story is told in flashbacks.

Lily Tomlin was good playing a Ruth Maddof character on Season Three of DAMAGES (2010)

[quote]And both her sons are dead, and she'll have to live with that for the rest of her life.

As sleazy and base as it was, the death of his sons raised Madoff’s tale to the realm of Shakespearean tragedy. Four family members undone by avarice: two dead, one imprisoned, one in exile. Destroyed. I wonder if Madoff himself is capable of regret.

Both her sons dying was like something out of a Greek Myth or tragedy. I'm very curious about the son who hung himself . Was it due to fear of jail time? Or shame? Or sadness over his father's incarceration and the destruction of his family? I think she was a brittle and unlikable woman but probably not aware of what was happening, though really who knows. There was an interesting article in VF by Madoffs former secretary, I'll try to find it.

Here's the article

Yessss r10 I always forget about that! Ryan Phillipe was a good Assange and Ted Danson was pretty Trump if I recall.

Madoff is incapable of regret. I've listened to his prison phone calls and the man is in denial and has no regrets. On the calls he talks about how he ended it himself because it was too much work to keep up. The bastard ran out of money. When everyone started to lose money in their other accounts, too many withdrawals were made His clients knew their account with Bernie had guaranteed returns and the funds were always available immediately. That's why they put money with him.

[quote]r14 I always forget about that! Ryan Phillipe was a good Assange and Ted Danson was pretty Trump if I recall.

I really loved DAMAGES. I think this is my favorite scene from a TV show, ever.

When it comes to the sons, I don't think they knew. They were actively involved in the legitimate side of the business, the trading business. They ran trading and Bernie ran his private investment fund. The son who died of cancer, came forward years after and seemed authentic as hell. More-so than Ruth. She only came forward because the surviving son wanted to get their story out there and she hadn't done what her other son had wanted before he killed himself.

My favorite scene in Damages was Patty driving with a weird look on her face. You hear the car speeding up and they show her white leather shoe on the gas pedal, with that small speck of blood and you know Patty had done it. I don't remember what she had done.

There are plenty of women (and men) who live the good life while their partner "handles all the finance so well" and wake up one day to find they have gone and taken all the money with them.

One of the most hateful things I’ve ever heard was Bernie’s quote: “It was almost like—it sounds horrible to say it now, but I just wanted the world to come to an end. When 9/11 happened, I thought that would be the only way out—the world would come to an end, and I’d be dead and everyone would be gone.”

Fucking psychotic. He ripped his family apart and destroyed people’s life savings and during a terror attack on the country he just cares about himself. I can’t see how Ruth wasn’t a little aware of his personality.

Did she know? What idiotic question, who asks such stupid dreck; of course she knew, it's always such an idiotic excuse, and the justice system lets the rich get away with it so damn often; ridiculous to say she didn't know.

r18 Yes, the September 11th stuff was haunting. Total psychotic. All of those calls, you just can't believe what you're hearing from him as he's sitting in a prison.

The shame in this case was built on how he betrayed fellow Jews. They couldn't believe one of their own robbed & duped them.

The fabled 'female intuition' only applies when a woman can benefit from it. If the intuition makes her a perpetrator, she claims ignorance and that she didn't know.

[quote]r16 My favorite scene in Damages was Patty driving with a weird look on her face. You hear the car speeding up and they show her white leather shoe on the gas pedal, with that small speck of blood and you know Patty had done it. I don't remember what she had done.

I don't remember, either. Maybe it was after something to do with the hit she put out on Ellen? But she was in the Hamptons during that.

Željko Ivanek was also superb as attorney Ray Fiske. None of his big scenes are on youtube, though[bold] : ( [/bold] When he fell apart at the end it was so sad, and well played.

BTW, I want to know who in HELL made this video!

R16, I do not think either of the sons knew what that POS had done until he sat them down and told them. Bernie from all accounts ran the family with an iron first and was extremely territorial about his side of the business.

Neither son never, ever spoke with him again after finding out their entire lives were built on one big scam. They also had a hard time dealing with Ruth due to her still being in contact with Bernie and going to visit his stank ass. There were stretches they didn't speak with her either.

It appears what finally pushed the son who killed himself over the edge was due to the very aggressive Trustee in the case filing suit against his very young minor children. He begged his wife prior to his death to change her and the kids last names to her maiden name.

The Madoff son's genuinely appeared to be destroyed by Bernie's greed.

Ruth is a very shrewd lady.

That is Ruth. Shrewd.

My favorite Page Six story ever.

[quote]“Ruth had a network in place to deliver pot up to the apartment,” a source told Page Six of life inside the couple’s posh duplex penthouse at 133 E. 64th St. “If she didn’t have anything to smoke it in, she would order someone out to a bodega for rolling papers because she felt unsafe leaving the apartment herself.”

This room. Their apartment where they spent most of their time, had 3 bedrooms, but only one bed, in the master. The other two bedrooms were each set up as a den for Ruth and Bernie. This is Ruth's den. It looks well used, but not by someone optimistic about the future. They also seemed to employ a decorator full time. The decorator lost out big time in the fraud like every one else.

Ruth's master bathroom. Bernie had his own. There's really nothing to say.

[quote]r28 There's really nothing to say.

Other than that their "decorator" was RIPPING THEM OFF.

Both those rooms are bare and horrible. You have to intercede [italic]somewhere,[/italic] just out of professional pride.

They all worked for the family business, which was claiming to be a high level financial investment business. When it was found to be a fraudulent, a ponsi scheme, none of them knew. Anyway you slice it they committed a massive fraud on their investors.

[quote]People like Ruth Madoff (and likely [R1]'s example) don't care how the $$$ comes in as long as it does, and they're not so stupid that they don't suspect something is off, and pay it no heed as long as they don't get caught.

Lots of very smart people were fooled by Madoff.

I presume the (staggering) photos of Madoff interiors were taken after the rooms were cleaned-out, post-discovery. However, they do appear soul-less.

R1 We had a guy like that in France, he ended up killing his wife and kids, his parents and the family dog. Sentenced to life in 1993, he made a plea for his release earlier this February, got denied, appealed and is now going to be released in the coming months.

Look up Jean-Claude Romand.

Most wives are not involved in the actual business side of the their husbands' businesses for a reason (usually so they don't know how much money goes to the mistress or male side piece or a whole secret life with another family).

Women like Ruth are perfectly fine to be oblivious as long their credit cards don't get denied, and they can play lady of the house and spend, be social, host galas, etc. Once the credit cards get denied they start to get interested why there's no more money she can spend.

She's just been ordered to pay $600K to the trustee. She will also now forfeit all her assets upon death. No heirs.

[quote]weather or not she knew.

Where's the Oh Dear troll?

Did Madoff have a personality disorder? He didn't seem like a narcissist, he seemed too low key.

I always wished that Dominick Dunne would have been around long enough to write a book about them. Plus a lot of articles with juicy bits from their lives.

Dunne must have known the Madoffs'.

Madoff is a psychotic narcissist. He never gave a shit about his sons and neither did his wife. The two of the should have spent life in jail in solitary confinement. How did she get 2.5 million? She should have been on welfare in welfare housing.

Dunne died about 9 months after the scandal broke. Madoff was sentenced in June of 2009 and Dunne died in August of 2009. The story hadn't had a real ending and he was probably too ill. It's a damn shame.

I don't know if he ever met them. They kind of kept to themselves. They wanted to be seen as gods to their employees and investors but didn't really put themselves out there.

He mentioned Madoff in his final book, released posthumously.

[quote]The plot of “Too Much Money,” which is almost an incidental feature, has Perla scheming to stop Gus from writing a novel about her. (It doesn’t work.) One of her ploys is to have Gus’s publisher suggest he write instead about “this Madoff fellow.” That might well have been Mr. Dunne’s next writerly destination, as could the posthumous struggle over the estate of Brooke Astor, although she is treated with the kind of kid gloves that suggest Mr. Dunne might not have wanted to become embroiled in her son’s recent trial.

You can always tell how on the up-and-up a rich man is by his wife- Ruth, Melania, Nancy... false riches, false trophies.

Bernie was a narcissist, a psychopath, an asshole and pure evil, but he was not married to a Melania. They'd been together since she was 14 and he was 16.

[quote]Did Madoff have a personality disorder? He didn't seem like a narcissist, he seemed too low key.

WHAT?! Grrl, do some readin’!

[quote]Squillari once caught him perusing the escort ads in the back of a magazine, and he frequently visited massage parlors. “Once, I looked in his address book and found, under M, about a dozen phone numbers for his masseuses...Madoff was flirtatious and had a habit of making sexually suggestive remarks: “‘Oh, you know you’re crazy about me,’ he would say to me. Sometimes when he came out of his bathroom, which was diagonal to my desk, he would still be zipping up his pants. If he saw me shaking my head disapprovingly, he would say, ‘Oh, you know it excites you.’ If a pretty young woman came in, he’d say, ‘Do you remember when you used to look like that?’ I’d tell him, ‘Knock it off, Bernie,’ and he’d go, ‘Ah, you still look good.’ Then he’d try to pat me on the ass.”

R43, yes and was she the Far Rockaway Debutante of the Year for 1959? I’m not saying she was a whore, I wasn’t saying they were actually (although we do here). It’s either the real thing or it’s not.

[quote]In the days after her husband’s arrest, Ruth Madoff called Squillari multiple times and encouraged the secretary to provide her with certain information without notifying the bankruptcy trustees, which Squillari said she couldn’t do.

[quote]Madoff told Squillari. “ [That embezzler’s boss] should have been keeping an eye on his personal finances. That’s why I’ve always had Ruth watching the books. Nothing gets by Ruth.”

All this, plus - SHE KEEPS IN TOUCH with Bernie, even way back when her sons were alive and had cut him off??

Honey, she knew.

I don't know that she still keeps in touch with Bernie. Last I heard she hadn't talked to him since Mark Madoff killed himself. They are still married. She's probably happy to just steer clear of any judges.

In my waiter days Ruth & Bernie would come in. The longtime bartender knew what Bernie drank & he would make it. The waiter would deliver it & was told not to speak to him. Ruth would do the ordering. At no time would Bernie speak to you. Sometimes the sons came in —same thing— wouldn’t address the weight staff. Just wanted to share that snapshot of their interactions with public. As an aside: a lot of these wives to important men would do the same at the place I worked.. like it was out of the socialist handbook

Spell check destroyed some words above

[quote]wouldn’t address the weight staff.

I’m inclined to think that’s more of a controlling Jewish matriarch/mother/frau thing from Mama Madoff than snob behavior from spoiled celebrity alpha males, r48. Are you sure they were ordered not to speak to the men?

Gee, it’s not like they were famous stars, to be shielded from everyday hounds.

Unless the place was known for banker types, all wanting to suck up to Bernie or get in on his magic beans.

Ruthie may have know that something was a miss, but never to the scale and magnitude of what he actually did. Maybe she figured sometimes you cut a few corners, you pay a fine, but never to the extent of Bernie's scam. She lost everything. Including her family.

I'm assuming socialist handbook was supposed to be society handbook?

As far as I knew, Bernie didn't drink. He couldn't risk spilling his secrets. Even in the OP photo, at his own party he's having a Diet Coke. I guess he could drink if he was out alone with Ruth.

As long as her credit cards were working, why would she ask? There is no way she would have known what was going on unless and until the two of them ended up in divorce court. Bernie could not let that happen, so you know that Ruth had her ass well and truly kissed. Daily.

Had she ever filed for divorce... hoo boy! That would have been a mess.

Ruth was a pothead? Who knew.

[quote]She lost everything

REALLY? AND HOW ABOUT THEIR HUNDREDS OF CLIENTS, SOME OF WHICH WERE NOT MULTIMILLIONAIRES BY ANY MEANS?

If I were living off of the interest of 1.9 million dollars you wouldn’t say I’ve lost everything, would you? And we all have tragedies and deaths in our families (I was fatherless since age 10 and consider myself lucky because he didn’t actually walk out on us like many other fathers do).

She’s still sitting pretty, assisted by servants and lawyers.

This whole comparative narrative that references “the life (s)he was accustomed to” needs to end. It’s one of the thorns still gnawing at our otherwise pretty fair capitalist society.

If a gold digger walks out or cheats on their spouse, they need to be poor again. If a family is wealthy from crime or illegal/unethical practices and they get busted, they need to be poor again.

And poor doesn’t mean a Connecticut two-bedroom with a maid.

I was appalled at how people were upset that Bezos' wife walked away with only 25% or only $35 billion. People really thought she should have gotten more. $1 billion would have been just fine.

R33 I read the book The Adversary. I thought I was reading a novel. It might have been based on a true story. i had no idea it was fact. Actually a great book. If I remember correctly it was written by a close friend who had no idea the protagonist was a sociopath.

More gossip r48, first hand accounts are the best!

Madoff's married mistress wrote a book after the scandal and claimed that he had a tiny dick.

How did she lose everything? She didn't seem to care that much about her sons and she got 2.5 million.

Many retirees who were decent people would love to have had that nest egg.

I'm surprised about the sons not speaking to the waitstaff. That is really bizarre.

Regardless of whether she knew or not, she has been punished. One son suicided, the other dead of cancer, her husband effectively dead as well. Her social circle is gone.

I find her endlessly fascinating. How she keeps putting one foot in front of another and shows her face in public don’t know. She still looks stylish and trim. Her circumstances are greatly reduced, compared to what they were, at least (I’d be eternally grateful to spend my last days in her level of comfort, anyway!)

What I also find interesting is how she achieved that WASPy look. She was a Jewish girl from Queens.

She has not been punished. If she had been left with nothing but a welfare check that would have been true punishment. She is a psychopathic narcissist like her husband. I can't imagine she's too broken up about her sons. Even if she did not know the extent of her husband's criminal activities her life was too good to ask questions.

And yes I too would like to spend my last days in such comfort especially after being complicit in the devastation of so many lives.

I read somewhere that one of her former daughter-in-laws (she has three) won't let her see that set of kids. So no contact with some of the grandkids. Her situation does sound horrible. I too wonder how she can get out of bed in the morning.

Wasn't some of the money recovered and returned to clients?

Yes, r65, but it was only a fraction of what they had invested. I am not even sure that all the clients got something.

^Book title and author/mistress name, please. I want to read that.

Here you go r67.

Even accounting for how vaguely you stated that, it is really not true, R66.

"While no one will ever collect the phantom profits Madoff pretended he was earning, the cash deposits by his clients have been the primary objective for Irving Picard, a New York lawyer overseeing liquidation of Madoff’s firm in bankruptcy court. So far he’s recovered $13.3 billion—about 70 percent of approved claims—by suing those who profited from the scheme, knowingly or not. And Picard has billions more in his sights."

Jewelry. Jewelry and Art. When you have a husband who's "in business" you have to be prepared. Also keep a separate, secret bank account. Put a little money in it every week from the groceries. Pretty soon you'll have a fortune. Easily $10,000.

I didn’t know that, r69. When I read everything I could find about the Madoff scandal a few years ago the information was pretty much that there was no money to claim.

Well done of Irving Picard. All I remember were devastated middle class people who had list everything.

[quote]Her situation does sound horrible. I too wonder how she can get out of bed in the morning.

OMG, what part of 2.5 million retirement nest egg do you fail to understand? That money is enough to buy you a different “family”, a circle of friends, a new name, and new digs somewhere in the world where Wall Street news don’t make the papers ... and plenty left over to invest and multiply.

However, if she just feels that being ostracized from Manhattan society is the end of the world and cause for devastation, then that’s her problem and no one else’s.

^ Plus the Swiss and Cayman Islands accounts^

How old was she when all this went down and when her second son died? There is a point when one can't reinvent oneself, not matter how much money they have. I wonder if the daughters-in-law have anything to do with her. She may not have contact with her grandchildren. She may just be counting the days at this point.

I'm not saying I have sympathy for her, but it's not like she ever wore a jacket that says "I really don't care, do u?".

I don’ t think that any money can reliefer the pain of losing both your kids and be denied contact with your grandkids r72.

Ruth was Norn in 1941, the scandal was in 2008, Mark died in 2010 and Andrew in 2014. She’s 77 now.

"weather"?

Oh, dear.

It’s all relative of course. $2.5 million is plenty, especially for someone who doesn’t have anyone to leave it to. It’s not like she’s buying her grandkids Hanukkah presents.

[quote]Did she know? What idiotic question, who asks such stupid dreck; of course she knew,

Oh of [bold]course[/bold] she knew, to the R19s of the world anyway. As far as the R19s are concerned, no one is ever innocent of anything. Ask an R19, and the R19 will say, "they're all in it together, they all lie and commit fraud, they are all out to get me, EVERY LAST ONE OF THE STINKERS!"

I will never understand the mega rich, when is it ever enough? Bernie probably would have lived pretty damn well without the ponzi scheme. He destroyed his family and countless others for what? Crazy what happened to the sons.

I'm surprised it took the "the Jews" troll so long to find this thread.

The "the Jews" troll is really falling down on the job. We might want to look into getting another one.

I see her somewhat often going for walks. My office is right next to where she lives. I know she is a bit of a pariah in that complex she lives in

Is she not allowed to move abroad?

[#51] He would not speak to the wait staff . He'd come in first - always - and we were directed not to speak to him. Place the drink & go. She'd order for him. he wouldn't look at you. There were a lot of wall street people / Socialites - people knew who he was. He was def famous in those circles. The restaurant was set up with private rooms - they were never in the open area. Lots of celebs, people from UN. To be fair: we were not a chummy place, besides the regulars.

There are many spouses who stay out of and in the dark about the other spouses business- in particular the traditional male/female couple. The affluent woman lives in a bubble of material trappings and essentially runs the couple's social life with can be quite large. Some women actually handle the financial side of a couple- but poor old Ruth was of the old school. She comforted herself and justified her life in the complex affluent lifestyle and social life she inhabited. My guess is that she was bullied by him as well, and one way she stayed in the marriage was not to challenge him on his business. Talk about a shattered life- of course her husband ruin thousands of people. She lost her entire family and could not have been betrayed more by someone than she was by her husband. I think she was more victim than criminal like her husband. But she definitely enabled a very sick man and in doing so contributed to the destruction of her sons' lives as well. I imagine she knows all this now.

R79 she can't leave her money to anyone she agreed to turnover her assets to the court appointed trustee when she dies.

[quote]r86 She definitely enabled a very sick man and in doing so contributed to the destruction of her sons' lives as well. I imagine she knows all this now.

She won, in that she's still standing. But at what cost?

[italic]Slow Fade Out

[quote]Now, I know everything, except weather or not she knew.

Oh, dear!

Ex-waiter here: also - i wasn't offended by bernie staying silent & ruth doing the ordering. They were just another rich couple to me (till the news broke & it was like "Oh!" ) The UN dignitaries were often awful. It's been years. Lauren Bacall was there a lot- she was fine. Madonna a few times when i was working (she was all business). Stephen (Steven?) Sondheim was nice - I always wondered if he was a pot head.

Ruth came from a family with money. That’s why she got to keep some money for herself—she had been given over a million dollars by her family when she married Bernie, so that money was always her separate property.

[quote]Ruthie may have know that something was a miss,

Oh, dear!

You cannot claim you are competent employee for a high level financial institution and so stupid that you did not know what was happening at the same time. You are either:

Not a competent employee to conduct the oversight functions of that job and are liable.

or

You knew.

Her 2 sons were also employees of the financial institution, so same for each of them.

R85/r90:

Please keep the anecdotes coming! Anyone else, including bankers, with odd requests/behavior?

Just FYI: all you need to do to reference a post - so readers can click on it and know who or what you’re talking about - is to place the letter r before the reply number. So #51 becomes r51.

R93 im not defending Ruth really but i totally disagree with your premise. I work at a hedge fund. If myself and 4 other people from the right departments conspired to launder money from our firm, i am pretty confident we could get away with it for years, assuming no drastic audits.

Financial institutions are extremely complicated, no one person understands every single aspect of our business, not even the managing partner.

[quote]r92 Oh, dear!

Maybe they meant Swiss Miss?

Madoff was careful to sequester his operations from the rest of the office. He made sure that no one with brains saw what he was doing.

Btw, I have a friend who lives in the same condominium complex as Ruth. If my friend is living there, it’s pretty middle class (by Connecticut standards, of course).

How many gold ingots and raw jewels does she have sequestered up her snatch?

[italic]Shake her!

The craziest thing about the trustee are the 'clawbacks'. That's how they've gotten most of the money they've distributed to victims. Anyone who took out more than they initially invested was forced to pay back the difference. One woman's father invested $200k in the 70s and when he died his account was worth over a million. His daughter inherited the account and had to pay inheritance taxes of right around $200k. She was left with nothing because only $200k was invested initially.

If you invested one million dollars and took Madoff's standard offer of a 1% return per month, that's $10,000 monthly. After 8.5 years of monthly returns, you're done. The trustee considers that you've gotten all of your money back. If you took the monthly $10,000 return for any longer than 8.5 years, you'd be forced to pay back anything you received over and above your initial million dollar investment.

Jeffry Picower and Carl Shapiro's settlements were the other source of funds for the trustee. Both of these men invested a few hundred million dollars over the life of the scam, but withdrew several billion dollars each. They knew. Their families seemed all too eager to surrender billions of dollars. There was no fight.

The IRS really came out on top. All of Madoff's phony profits were taxed and the IRS reaped the benefits.

JP Morgan knew too. There was no "hedge fund". There was a Chase Manhattan account with a floating balance. All of the money from the scheme went in and out of one multi-billion dollar JP Morgan Chase account. As Madoff's balance shrank in the fall of 2008, JP Morgan Chase conveniently withdrew all of their client's money from Madoff.

R97 i think the one bedrooms in the complex start at like 700k. In Fairfield county thats only one step above the homeless shelter

Ruth lives in Old Greenwich Gables,( sorry Ruth). She pays either $1100 or $1400/mo for her apartment. It's a one bedroom. It looks very appropriate for a 77 year old woman.

As for friends, she's been taken in by a group of church ladies. She regularly attends bible studies, bake sales and the like. These women have befriended her to make Jesus happy. She's Jewish but happy to have friends.

[quote]—Ruth Madoff: Living on $1.9 M in Connecitcut

What happened to the $2.5 M, did she spend 600k and never told anyone?

r102 see r35

Jeffry Picower met his end at the bottom of his swimming pool in Palm Beach. Coronary + accidental drowning. His wife Barbara found him. Today Barbara runs a foundation with money from her late husband's estate. The JPB Foundation has something like $3 billion in assets.

So upthread someone mentioned Nancy as a wealthy socialite . Who is that?

Ruth looks youthful in R103.

I took Nancy to be Pelosi.

Thanks r68!

I just watched the HBO movie "Wizard of Lies" with Robert DeNiro as Bernie and Michelle Pfeiffer as Ruth. Loved Michelle's fried blonde "Ruth" hairstyle.

How accurate was this movie? Did Ruth's undergarments really go to auction? Did Bernie really act like a dick to caterers and waitstaff (according to the account above about him and Ruth at the bar I'd guess so)? Did he really blow up at his 8 year old granddaughter during a family dinner?

Michelle Pfieffer visited with Ruth to get to know her before playing her. So did Blythe Danner. They said she "didn't cooperate" with the films officially but was happy to meet with the actresses.

Pfieffer and SJP discuss a lot about Ruth and playing her in this interview. Blythe Danner played Ruth twice, once in an ABC movie and once on Broadway in a story inspired by the Madoffs but not an actual Madoff retelling. SJP played Bythe's daughter in law on Broadway.

So Ruth is living in a rented apartment? Not paying mortgage on a condo?

Her new friends are church ladies?

To those upthread who've seen her on walks, how does she look?

She's still around.

I wonder if she still smokes.

At least she kept her figure.

Bernie Madoff had ridiculous cream puff hair, squinty eyes, a pot belly, and looked like he had bad breath. He only had those mistresses because he was rich.

I don't believe that there was no money hidden away. There was a story floating around Palm Beach that someone who lost $25,000,000 with Madoff got word to Madoff that that there was a target on each of his Grandchildren's backs unless the money was returned. The money was. This all took place while he was still living in his NY Penthouse, and the accounts in questions were all offshore. Someone I knew as a child had been very rich but lost all his money when the stock he received from the sale of his company lost 90% of his value. He had one of the largest yachts in the world and a huge estate on Long Island. When his creditors came for his wife's multi million dollar Jewel collection, it turns out all the real stones had been switched for very good fakes. When they notified the wife, she claimed to be shocked but by then her husband had died. Turns out, she switched the stones and ended up living very well until her death last year.

r13 that link is bad. I want to read that story

SURF’S UP! But the page you were looking for appears to be down. Sorry about that. GO TO THE HOMEPAGE

It says for the VF article linked

I assume this is it.

She’s carrying a very expensive Goyard bag in R110 pic

Thank you r117

I remember reading a page six sighting a few years back where Ruth Madoff was dining solo at California Pizza kitchen and used a coupon,

I've not heard that r20. Thanks lol

This thread is the first time I've seen her, and she's way more attractive than I had her pictured. I was thinking more along the lines of Estelle Getty or Doris Roberts.

Blythe Danner as Ruth Madoff sitting in a daze as the Feds raid her apartment in ABC's Madoff.

When I saw this apartment I knew it was the one used in the ABC miniseries. They used some of the same furniture.

Is wizard of lies any good? I'm thinking about watching it online.

Why do you think she was so devastated by the deaths of her sons? Why does everyone on DL of all places think that parents necessarily deeply and profoundly love their children and are destroyed by their loss?

For a middle class woman her age she seems to be doing just fine. And Bernie has yet to hang himself and he'll be damned before he does.

'

@KTLA

A Northern California man who police say faked his own suicide to avoid jail for child sexual assault and pornography has been arrested in Florida.​

r125

I thought it was pretty good.

I think Ruth knew. But she was hooked on the money, the clothes, the lifestyle. She anesthetized her own conscience.

Ruth looks really good.

[quote] Why do you think she was so devastated by the deaths of her sons? Why does everyone on DL of all places think that parents necessarily deeply and profoundly love their children and are destroyed by their loss?

Because most of the time they do.

The Wizard of Lies is much better than the reviews indicated. There was a lot of judgement about it not drawing conclusions or including enough flagellating scenes of guilt. That would be great. Truth is we don't know what they knew. A real film artist would have taken more liberties for sure, but the outrage was kind of the current way of dealing with complex moral failings. The script ain't great but Michelle Pfeiffer is Ruth Madoff. Another fantastic performance in a small role.

The Madoff story is so fucking incredible and juicy and tragic and despicable that they should have been able to do a better dramatization. It's a netflix 8 part series - except it can't be. Everyone is dead or in prison. The 4 hour mini series with Blythe Danner and Richard Dreyfuss does a much better job of storytelling. Dreyfus is unbearable but somehow more believable than Deniro. By all accounts Bernie Madoff was an obnoxious Jew and that's how Dreyfus plays him. BUT, no one should miss 95 lb Pfeiffer as 98 lb Ruth Madoff. Watch wizard of lies. There a two great scenes and a few others that come close.

And yes, of course Ruth knew. Not everything. But more than enough that her skinny ass should be in prison.

R128 r131 Hmm maybe I'll check out both. Weirdly this is the first I'm hearing of a Danner /Dreyfuss series on the madoffs. I must have missed the coverage. Thanks for the input.

[quote]Weirdly this is the first I'm hearing of a Danner /Dreyfuss series on the madoffs

Moi aussi.

I really liked Dreyfuss as Bernie and I really liked Michelle Pfeiffer as Ruth. While I thought it was kind of funny that the Meet the Parent's parents both played the Madoffs, they weren't my favorite.

And again, Blue Jasmine is great.

You're welcome R32. Let me know what you think. I would like to see the Dreyfus/Danner story again. It was made for network TV so does a better job of explaining the financial intricacies and progression of things. And Dreyfus is excellent, Danner is fine as always. (You MUST see Michelle as RUTH) I know I characterized him as an obnoxious jew, I hope no one here thinks bad of me. Because some of my best friends are delightful jews. And many of us heathens are obnoxious. OY, I should leave that alone.

(There is that great scene with Deniro in WOL, where he berates his son about having the lobster - it's a promise of what the movie could have been. Michelle Pfeiffer is not a caricature of course, she is a fine actress displaying this woman Ruth. She is moving and sympathetic, but somehow lethally accurate.)

I'm sure you probably read this - back when Vanity Fair still dared to publish 10,000 word articles... it is very good. Told from Bernie's secretary. They did a whole series about Madoff, his crimes and victims - conjecture about what his family knew, the tragedies that followed. Those articles didn't interest me as much. Something about this early examination contains the most truth and foretells the future. A scoop.

The secretary doesn't come out and say it but hints that Ruth knew

True. My post at R135 was meant in response to R132.

Part 1

Thank you, r85! Bernie sounds like a prick, how can people walk around and treat other people like that, regardless of how rich they are?

He apparently was a terrible bully to everybody, staff and family members. The whole family sounds messed up and I felt very little sympathy for any of them after reading about them. The wife of Mark Madoff, the son that killed himself, wrote a book a few years after the scandal and it was an interesting read.

I preferred "Wizard of Lies" to the network show with Dryfus. I think Dinero and Pfeiffer played things a lot more realistically and Dinero played Bernie as a ditached low-key bully. From everything I've read, Bernie liked to stay under the radar and was very quiet about his success and philanthropic endeavors. I think that was his way of drawing people in - mystery - and also staying off the radar of those who may uncover his ponzi scheme.

I'm one of two children and my brother was killed in his early 30s. It nearly destroyed our mother. The fact that Ruth can still stand having lost both her children...wow.

Interesting interview with Harry Markopolos, a financial analyst who contacted the Securities and Exchange Commission about Bernard Madoff as early as 2000.

If Markopolis was less of a weirdo know-it-all and more of a people person who tried to get along with co-workers, and especially, superiors they would have taken him more seriously from the start. Most of the people who worked with him who I've seen Interviewed politely try to be diplomatic about his personality, but you can tell her wasn't well liked. He thought he was smarter than everyone in the room. Thus, no one wanted to give him a win or validate his intelligence. It's sad that essentially office politics prevented Bernie from being caught sooner.

Don't be a jackass, r57. She helped build the business. She did Bezos a favor by only asking for $35B, which is why he agreed to it so quickly.

People who act like the wives who help build a business shouldn't get paid for their work are ridiculous.

R130 you must watch a steady stream of Hallmark Christmas movies. With all the people on DL who hate their parents there are just as many parents who dislike or tolerate or are indifferent to their children. Bernie seemed to be pretty indifferent why shouldn't his wife have been the same? Just because you are raised being told the family is the most important thing in the world we know it is used just as well as a child destroyer.

Did you grow up watching Andy Hardy MGM movies?

You seem to have bought that cliché hook line and sinker. For a number of parents the loss of a child may put a crimp in their evening but they get along just fine.

When I read r130 I thought it was going to be from Mrs. Patsy Ramsey.

The Madoffs had hundreds of millions of dollars that were legitimately there's. But Bernie got greedy and completely destroyed his entire family's life.

Did Bernie and Ruth really attempt suicide by sleeping pills, as per Wizard of Lies?

R145, what kind of damage have you suffered to spew that bullshit? Just because no one has ever loved you doesn't mean other parents have been so cold-hearted.

R126, you may be right that she didn’t much care about the deaths of her sons. Who knows?

Most people would be catatonic with grief, so we expect that others would be. But, yeah, there are terrible people out there who wouldn’t be destroyed by losing their entire family.

r147 -- This.

And targeting Jews who didn't fully trust gentile financial advisors.

r148 Yes, that was true. Christmas Eve, 2008. The movie was based on Diana B. Henriques' book of the same name. She interviewed both Bernie and Ruth in person, I believe multiple times. That being said Diana B. Henriques does not believe Ruth knew.

Their UES penthouse was so drab and depressing.

The owners after the Madoffs really brightened up the main floor.

It's more than doubled in value since 2008.

2008 Listing

2014 Listing

R149 How stupid could you be to say that all parents love their children and would be devastated by their loss? A number couldn't care less. Live in your 1950s TV bubble and live in your world of lies.

Spew your family values bullshit somewhere else. God knows literature is filled with enough stories of parents destroying families and children under the guise of 'parental love.' Continue to tell yourself that authoritarian figures have their jobs because they want the best for people and that Jesus loves you.

I thought people on DL were too smart to swallow this pablum.

R157, MOST people aren’t psychopaths, and would be devastated to lose a child. It has nothing to do with 1950s “family values”. Animals (primates, dolphins, elephants, for example) grieve the death of their offspring.

It’s completely normal. Why does this make you so very angry?

I'm just saying not ALL parents suffer terribly at the death of a child. Of course some do. Parents have strokes, suffer fatal heart attacks, or spend the rest of their lives in a kind of daze.

But a number don't care and it can be a kind of relief for them.

I'm sorry life does not conform to how you think it should be. Honestly I wish it did.

The Madoff son's refused to have anything to do with Ruth as long as she was in contact with Bernie. She chose her sons and cut all contact with Bernie. She doesn't sound like a mother who couldn't care less if her boys were dead or alive.

Carmela Sopra..oops I mean Ruth Mafoff almost certainly knew how the sausage was made. She worked with him in the early days and had an office in the company.

She knew.

[quote]The Madoffs had hundreds of millions of dollars that were legitimately there's.

Oh, dear!!

Well Bernie was a parent who clearly couldn't have cared less.

Most parents would be devastated if something happened to their children, not all, but the vast majority. Not sure Bernie does, but I'm guessing the wife had some maternal feelings. Even if she didn't, she'd be in a minuscule minority of people who didn't care.

[quote][R130] you must watch a steady stream of Hallmark Christmas movies.

No, I don't. I know a lot of good parents. And my parents lost a son, my older brother. And I agree with R141.

Her husband is in prison for life, her sons are dead, no on in the Jewish community will have anything to do with her. She can't be having a good life.

Really R166? She's still being ostracized? I thought she left NY.

Many of the fortunes lost were from Jewish people. She is an untouchable. I believe she is living in Conn. now.

I think with Ruth she knew the basics, about the business he was in, and she knew the SEC and the tax man set the rues and sometimes you broke the rules and paid a fine, or you had to get audited and pay more taxes. But Ruth never knew or dreamed it was as huge or as bad as it was and that her husband was an actual criminal. He broke a few rules, he paid a fine. So what? And people were always suing one another. I just do not believe she realize it. Maybe a part of her didn't want to know. So she blocked it out. She thought Bernie was some kind of genius operator. Bernie did his dirty work on a separate floor. He wouldn't even let his sons go on that floor. They worked on another floor on the other side of the building. The slime who worked on the floor where all the scams were taking place never came in contact with his other operations. So it's very believable to me that she never knew. Even his kids didn't know for a long time and they thought they were working with him.

I agree, r169.

Ruth knew enough to withdraw 16 million dollars from the brokerage account a few days before Bernie was basically turned himself in. Of course she knew. For how long is the real question.

It shows a profound lack of understanding to suggest that she or the kids knew anything about what was going on financially until everything collapsed.

Forget how complicated financial shit is, Bernie was a complete narcissist Who thought he Was smarter than everyone else And was smart enough to get away with his crimes. He would’ve never told his family about anything that made him look bad because that would have undermined his authority and control. And if they had known, there would have been evidence based on specific financial and life decisions they made along the way. The sons would’ve had no reason to continue hanging out around his business when there’s 1 million other things they could’ve done to separate themselves from it. And authorities would have probably found some effort to get creative with how they were hiding money and assets.

Also, Ruth and the boys had to testify that they didn’t have money squirreled away anywhere. Part of making a deal that keeps you out of prison or reduces your prison sentence is that if they ever find that you Have any hidden Money assets jewelry or overseas accounts, it will invalidate any deal that you make and you will basically go to prison for the rest of your life. And they explain that to you Because if the government gives you a deal and you lie, They need to set an example by charging you with as many crimes as possible. So there would be no reason for Ruth to hang on to a few hundred grand in jewelry.

It is entirely possible that Madoff Had some money in overseas accounts that he used to make a pay off to scary people. And there may be accounts still sitting out there That will never be withdrawn from

there were rumors that the son was 'suicided' by russian organized crime, where bernie was getting money from to fund the pyramid toward the end.

Or he could live next door to Kenneth Lay.

I've heard the rumors that Bernie was involved with the Russian mob, and that's where the rumors end. I haven't heard anything to support it.

Oy, such a shanda fur die goyim.

R169 r172 both nailed it. Have always been fascinated by this story. Have read practically every book about it. Bernie was a absolute control freak and those kids where basically not allowed on the floor where all the shenanigans where going on. I’m amazed that Bernie could get up everyday and go to work with this hanging over his head.

Whatever happened to his sidekick who did know everything?

I believe he also got cancer and died.

[quote]Yes, [R65], but it was only a fraction of what they had invested. I am not even sure that all the clients got something.

Wrong.

[quote]How stupid could you be to say that all parents love their children and would be devastated by their loss? A number couldn't care less. Live in your 1950s TV bubble and live in your world of lies.

How pathetic and miserable must your life have been to arrive at the assumption that your view of the parent-child relationship is more accurate than that of the poster whom you are addressing? The vast, vast majority of parents would be devastated by the loss of a child, even if they did not have a great relationship with that child. To suggest otherwise, and to do so with such stridency and vehemence, suggests that you are not in good mental health. You should seek help for your issues.

To topic at hand, I do not believe she knew. If she knew, she would have been charged on even the slightest of evidence. The feds investigated this woman top to bottom for years and were not able to produce any evidence that she was complicit. Given the hysteria surrounding this case, the fact that she was never charged with anything is quite instructive.

It is also untrue to suggest that Madoff's victims have not recovered. By some estimates, the trustee who was responsible for liquidating Madoff's firm and assets has recovered up to 85% of what was "lost" to Madoff's scheme.

At present rates of recovery, it is quite possible that in the end, Ruth Madoff will turn out to have been the biggest victim in what otherwise may turn out to be a victimless crime. I believe compassion is in order here.

[quote] Bernie. She chose her sons and cut all contact with Bernie.

I don’t think that’s accurate. She expressed regret that she DID not cut off Bernie off like Mark wanted. That was a deep regret when he ended up killing himself.

At best, Ruth Madoff has proved to be a dishonest woman, before and after her husband went to prison. She certainly did not have a warm or nurturing personality by any account. No doubt she is a sad and lonely woman now. Not everyone gets caught. She was only sorry for the loss of prestige, her grand life and privacy. She could not face her husband's upcoming incarceration, so they mailed a million dollars in jewelry to relatives and attempted suicide. She wasn't too concerned for her sons when they were still alive. It's not karma, it was a tragedy. But she is not the one to feel sorry for.

Take one look at her in the OP’s photo. Then, notice the Marlboro’s in front of her.

Classy.

She knew.

I like how it was summed up in a few words by Michelle Pfeifffer in Wizard of Lies...

Ruth: "What, Bernie? Are they going to take the apartment? What about the houses? What about the boys?"

Because she’s a smoker, she knew, r184?

I smoke, and I think I get what r184 meant. I feel like most of the Wall Street wives would have quit smoking in the 80s. Most. The ones that weren't aware that everything they knew could come crashing down at any moment. But at the same time I know a woman Ruth's age who still smokes and her husband is a doctor.

In OP's picture she is having wine and a cigarette. He is drinking Diet Coke.

R181, I met a guy and his wife who were pretty much wiped out by Madoff. The husband was an athlete whose playing days were over. He didn’t have the ability to make the money back.

He and his wife had bought a small home with their remaining funds and had a tiny child. They were selling all their gigantic furniture from the old house. Some was so large they couldn’t even get it in the door of the new house and had to keep it in the garage to sell. That told you how big the old place was. This guy had nothing growing up, worked for everything he had, then Madoff stole it all. Madoff’s wife was not more entitled to that man’s money than his own wife and child were.

He had a lot of sports related injuries and health problems and was in pain from his injuries and couldn’t do a lot of things. He could never recover what he lost.

r189, someone up thread said the $1.9 million was money Ruth received from her parents after they died. If the money was in her name only and she had not been convicted of a crime, then they could not confiscate it.

I heard husninvestors gotnsomething north ofn75% of the money they invested back - more than what they would have gotten back had the money had honestly been invested during that same time period. So really, I feel like everything is square now. They can't expect 100% of their money back cause they would have lost some of it due to fluctuations in the market. Or maybe I misunderstood

No mention yet that not only did Bernie target other Jews, he targeted Jewish charities.

“The Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family Foundation” have their name all over hospitals and other buildings in the Boston area. I think the lost most of their wealth from Madoff because they were with him for decades. Shapiro was one of the guys Bernie hustled for large sums just days before going under. Can you imagine calling your family and oldest friends for millions just days before you knew it was going to blow-up? He knew these people would lose it all, and buy him just a few days.

Even if a lot of people eventually got most of their cash back (which I've never heard before this thread) they still had their lives thrown up in the air and I'm sure plenty never recovered.

R191, you misunderstood.

I was invested with Fidelity managing my own money, and fully recovered from the crash in a couple years. I now have maybe 50% more than I had before the crash, even having paid taxes on most of my gains.

For the Bernie people, they’re just talking about the percent of the principal ever given to Bernie. So, if you invested with Bernie for 20 years, you have no profits, and ~65% of what you ever gave him. You completely missed out on all gains from the hottest stock market in a century.

Plus, if you paid tax on some profits taken, you’re out that money. There must be some kind of tax write off of future profits in exchange, I’m thinking; but if you’re broke, that write-off has no value to you.

This cunt should be in jail. And she actually tried to blame the "goys" for everything that happened.

[quote]The husband was an [bold]athlete[/bold] whose playing days were over.

[quote]This guy had nothing growing up, [bold]worked[/bold] for everything he had,

Is r191 even written in English?

Weren't any of bernie's investors a little skeptical that he managed to steadily make money even in down markets? I would have been, since most money managers don't even beat the indexes.

Did that accountant who wrote a book on alerting the SEC ever try to reach out to Bernie's investors?

"The Madoffs had hundreds of millions of dollars that were legitimately there's."

Oh, dear, r147.

There's nothing one can do to educate r147.

R199, he was already received his “oh dear” back at r162. Do keep up.

[quote] R198: Weren't any of bernie's investors a little skeptical that he managed to steadily make money even in down markets? I would have been, since most money managers don't even beat the indexes.

The movie depicts a savvy investor immediately detecting it as a scam, and refusing to invest.

People chose to invest because of the returns. Were the returns “guaranteed” in writing? Guaranteed at all, or just expected?

Does anyone know how it worked for investors who died before the crash? They had inheritors. Did they get the clawback too? Or, were they immune because of the way they got their returns?

Also, Could you just go bankrupt to avoid the clawback?

R203, I don’t think the returns were guaranteed. After all, no savvy investors would think any returns are guaranteed and that would raise a red flag.

However, once word got out that the returns were steady in spite of the market, Bernie didn’t have to chase down investors, they chased him down. And only select people were permitted to invest, making it all that much more elusive.

One of the big problems was that some investors put money in other funds, knowing nothing of Madoff. Then the owners of these other funds invested that money with Madoff. They got screwed and knew nothing about Madoff.

True, r206. Think 401(k)s.

I saw the Dreyfus 2 part movie as well as the DeNiro movie.

The most moving scene for me was from the Dreyfus one when Bernie tells his sons and his wife that it was all a scam. After the 2 sons leave, they are outside on the pavement and the son Mark tells the other that they must immediately turn in the old man. His wife's uncle or father (I think) was a lawyer and they must go talk to him right now. The other son is just dazed.

(Bernie has just told them that he will turn himself in in a week after he distributes huge sums of money to some people.)

Mark says they must go to the lawyer NOW because since Bernie is distributing his stolen money and they know of it, they will become accessories.

The next scene is them telling the lawyer and then later shows them talking to the FBI and signing their statements.

Meanwhile, this was the same night as the company Christmas party and Bernie and Ruth went to the party after Bernie told the sons about the Ponzi scheme.

Very, very well done.

I am sure the managers of the original funds got sued for not doing due diligence.

[quote] It is also untrue to suggest that Madoff's victims have not recovered.

Well, let's not forget about the ones who killed themselves. There were a few who committed suicide when they learned that money they had invested for other people in the Madoff fund was gone.

[quote] By some estimates, the trustee who was responsible for liquidating Madoff's firm and assets has recovered up to 85% of what was "lost" to Madoff's scheme.

As posters upthread have noted, that doesn't include what they would have made invested elsewhere. Also, it's been 10 years of the trustees chasing down that money: some of the investors were very old people who had nothing in the interim.

Yes, the Christmas party was held so he could pay out millions of dollars in stolen money in bonuses, one last time. He was a fucking sociopath. He sat on the Boards of Charities that he stole billions of dollars from. His desire to be seen as a financial savior, generous employer, pillar of the Jewish community and a serious philanthropist was ALL about his own fucking ego. His wife enjoyed all the perks and prestige that came along it. People kissed her skinny ass. Yes many of his investors were greedy, but just as many were unaware that's even where their money was. Read the four part Vanity Fair investigation at the very least. Too many people here don't seem to understand this case. Ruth Madoff is no one to feel sorry for and Bernie Madoff not only destroyed lives, his psychopathic ego trip is responsible for several suicides and other deaths. This is not primarily about the Madoff's greed. They were penny stock traders and his bookkeeper from Queens. He liked to throw money around but they didn't know much about the finer things of life. They suffered a different form of avarice. Shitty, terrible people.

I said a number couldn't care less not everyone. You do know that marriage for love is a recent concept. Also love for all children. How pathetic are you that you don't know this? You clearly live in a phony world of sitcom nonsense. Many people throughout history had many children to work as laborers in the house and in the fields. A number would die so you had enough when you lost a number. What every time a kid died these people were devastated? Are you joking? Animals eating their young, animals leaving injured cubs to die. You couldn't afford to be devastated by the loss of a child. You had too much to do to survive.

You people are laughable. How lucky you are to believe such bullshit. Oh my how devastating to lose a child! Oh it's the worst thing that could happen to a parent! For some yes. But not all. How can you be so dim? People live without love their whole lives and so do many children. And when they die no one cares. It's the nature of life.

R212, repeating the same point doesn't make it more valid.

Then tell me exactly what did I say that was invalid? What point did I make that was untrue? I am incredulous that you believe all parents love their children and that the overwhelming majority of children have be loved when billions have been nothing more than serfs.

Someone wasn't hugged as a child

R212, show us on the doll where the bad step-daddy touched you.

Many people haven't been hugged as children. You know no history and nothing of other cultures before your own.

I have offended many snowflakes.

Are you Christina Crawford R212?

I understand your point, there are children who are not loved or nurtured in this world. Who are not born from Love in a marriage between a man and woman sanctified by Christ. But you sound a lot more like someone who's been disinherited than not hugged. The reasons are well known to you.

She is probably with her grandchilden.

Well you do know that the sons of Bernie and Ruth were not born in a marriage between a man and woman sanctified by Christ. So therefore they cannot have been truly loved.

Bernie Madoff ripped off Elie Wiesel who is like the Jewish Gandhi for Christ's sakes.

Don't mix metaphors R222. We understand your pain Christina.

I knew a woman who lost everything to Madoff. She was a sweet old Jewish lady, single, no kids, and had to work for the rest of her life in order to get by.

Of course Ruth knew. She may not have known every detail but she knew.

This thread was actually pretty sane until R212 showed up. Now we're beginning the DL unravel....

I'm sure R225 you are as filled with love as Bernie and Ruth. But they loved their children! How they must suffer! Your cloying sentimentality is inspiring.

I honestly don't think she knew. A secret like this--our entire life is a ponzi scheme that is going to implode at any minute and the feds are going to drag us all to prison--is not an easy secret to keep. Most people wouldn't be able to sleep at night, not even from altruism, but because they have no idea when the other shoe is going to drop. Obviously, Bernie was a sociopath and was more or less okay with this for decades. I don't think it's likely that both boys AND the wife knew as well.

Clearly the son who killed himself couldn't live with that kind of pressure.

I'd love to ask the few people who were employees, who were keeping the separate books, what they thought was going to happen.

Well a mafia wife can sleep at night. She doesn't want to think about the gory details but she makes a kind of peace with it.

[quote]I have offended many snowflakes.

Not offended, just sympathetic. I actually feel bad for you, though I’m beginning to see why you were an unloved child.

You make excellent counterpoints R228. Jesus loves you, even if your parents didn't.

She knew something but she didn't know the scope of it, She probably knew there was some under the radar stuff but not enough to have her husband go to prison and both of her sons die. As someone said before Greek Tragedy.

[quote]Well a mafia wife can sleep at night.

But a mafioso doesn’t ordinarily present what by all accounts would be a normal image of a working man in the stock market who did well for himself.

I don’t believe Ruth knew. As much as I want to hate her for her association with him, it’s hard to. Most wives who are not in the market will not understand it and wouldn’t ask questions like, “How did your fund do so well when the others are in a downturn?” They just accept they don’t know how the money is made yet rely that it’s made honestly.

Plus, once the story broke the FBI, SEC and every other regulatory and investigatory body you can think of were looking for a piece of her, yet they couldn’t find any proof at all that she knew.

You obviously know nothing about the Madoff's marriage, business or this case R232. Ruth was his fucking bookkeeper for years. She understood plenty about the markets.

But his employees (the longtimers who had been with him for years) said that they fraud part of it only started in the late 80s or 90s. Madoff himself said that it was legitimate until the 90s. Was Ruth still working there then?

No, she wasn’t, r235, but r234 thinks he knows all.

I'm not sure and she's not telling and apparently the Feds can't prove it. And his secretary has talked and hasn't implicated Ruth.

Exactly R237 wouldn’t someone on Bernie’s sinking ship have pointed fingers at Ruth? And there’s no paper trail? I think she knew things were off, but no idea that it was a complete lie.

Why do you think the son hung himself? They weren't through with the boys. Ruth had to give up 85 million that she tried to keep. She also has had her life stripped of every luxury. The feds weren't interested in prosecuting her. Everyone knows that was part of Bernie's deal.

And Bernie's secretary all but called Ruth complicit long before the trial.

[quote]She also has had her life stripped of every luxury.

Not quite. I could live quite nicely on $2.4 million thank you.

[quote]Everyone knows that was part of Bernie's deal.

Bernie didn’t make a “deal” and would’ve had no leverage to do so. He pled guilty to all charges. That’s hardly a deal.

I don’t think she or the sons knew much - willful blindness combined with a lifetime of bullying from Bernie. Seems like most people recovered principal, not a complete wipe-out. But wow, the venom from the Tribe toward even those three is REALLY intense. Ruth should marry a rich WASP or Catholic with a lot of dough, that would be kinda funny. Of course she’d probably be killed in a matter of months...

Some poster is posting multiple lies from several devices. Like that ancient grampa who signs off as Ruth Madoff, living on 1.9 million. He's an admirer of hers who has claimed to be only 30 years old on some threads and Jacqueline Bouvier's nurse maid on others. He understands lying. (I think he used to be Miss Warwick)

Most people believe that Ruth Madoff knew plenty. And her husband most certainly did make a deal. It's even a scene in Wizard of Lies. The Deal was that Ruth knew nothing and Bernie would plead guilty to whatever they wanted.

[quote]And her husband most certainly did make a deal. It's even a scene in Wizard of Lies.

Oh, well then by all means let’s believe what a movie says is true, not, you know, the official record or anything.

R242 also believes sharks that were previously killed hold vendettas and stalk the family of their killer.

Is r243 even written in English?

He has already received his “oh dear”!

Guys like Madoff have such strong egos you are afraid to question them even if you suspect something. Plus, you are enjoying the spoils so you don't ask too many questions. I think that was the case. There is one thing I know for sure. If you had any relationship with anyone who worked in the Securities business that Madoff knew about, he wouldn't take your money because you could ask other people about his trades which would expose his lies.

Ruth Madoff has a lot of time on her hands and is clearly defending herself on DL!

r242 I only post on one device and I was never Jackie's nurse maid or Miss Warwick. I've been here maybe three months, right around the time Lee died. I was gone all day as I'm 30 and my mother is very much alive and well.

Today must have sucked for Ruth.

Madoff offered returns of right around %1 per month. It wasn't extraordinary except for the fact that his returns were so consistent. He only had about four down months. People thought they were investing with a lesser known Warren Buffet. Buffet beats the indices almost every year.

I just rewatched the Richard Dreyfus movie. They mention the “The Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family Foundation” immediately. They just say “”Carl”. That’s the guy he later asks for money at the Palm Beach club, his “father”, he called him.

There was a written guarantee of about a 12% return at one time, it did trigger regulators,

Interesting to hear about the Xmas party, R211. Earned income is treated differently than, well, plain theft, so I wonder if they got to keep their bonuses? But you well explain his narcissistic personality and sadly for us reminds me of someone today.

It was the other movie with the savvy investor.

[Italic] “The Big Short”, [/italic] I think it was, depicts the big bank’s falsely pricing bonds highly, until they could unload them. Then the roof fell in. I worked with these people, they’re willing to lie, cheat, and steal, and call it business.

His release date is Nov 14, 2139

[quote]There was a written guarantee of about a 12% return at one time, it did trigger regulators,

When was this? That makes me think he wanted to get caught.

I have always felt sorry for Ruth and sons - I don't believe they knew. And the resulting deaths of the sons is heartbreaking. I don't believe she is living in luxury - $2.5 million produces maybe $75,000 a year in income and while there are a lot of people that would kill for $75,000 in income it doesn't got that far - especially in Connecticut. She lives in a simple condo in Old Greenwich, CT and shops in discount stores.

[quote]right around %1

Oh, dear!

[quote]- $2.5 million produces maybe $75,000 a year in income and while there are a lot of people that would kill for $75,000 in income it doesn't got that far - especially in Connecticut.

$75K is a little less than my annual salary. I’d love to sit home and do nothing for that money. If it doesn’t go that far in Connecticut, the bitch can move. WTF?

[quote] . I’d love to sit home and do nothing for that money

Are you 80 years old like she is?

He said in interviews that he couldn't get caught. One of the problems with regulating these people is that, as he said, the second the regulators stepped out of his office after a visit with him, they would send him their resumes. When you have regs who want to work for the people they are investigating, nothing good comes of it. They should have caught him years ago. He was reported several times to the authorities--no one wanted to rock the vote.

Also, this isn't really a case of "beating the market"--ie picking stocks. Active asset management involves very sophisticated combinations of different asset classes, some of them with hugely leveraged. Managers blow up their customers all the time. (But what they don't do is deposit all the money in a savings account in Chase.)

As with everything Madoff, there's more layers to this. Madoff's niece, Shana Madoff was the firm's compliance officer and in-house legal counsel.

[quote]In 2007, she married Eric Swanson, a former Assistant Director of the Office of Compliance Investigations and Examinations at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (Sec)

[quote]In February 2006, Swanson was emailed by Assistant Director John Nee that the SEC’s New York Regional Office was investigating a complaint that Bernard Madoff might be running “the biggest Ponzi scheme ever.” In April 2006, Swanson began to date Shana Madoff. Swanson reported the relationship to his supervisor who wrote in an email "I guess we won't be investigating Madoff anytime soon."

Why can't a hard-working star be left alone and not invoked as an old white man by some dingy halfway-house trash like the serial-derangement at R242, the "I'm a sexy young black man who is "vary inteligint."

I mean, before long I'll be all that's left of the Tungsten Age of American Pop Entertainment.

But then assholes and shit go together, don't they, babies? But then when you do look like shit like R242, who can well which end is which except the slight twist?

[quote]Are you 80 years old like she is?

No, I’m not but sometimes I feel that old. But what does her age have to do with it? Like some of the victims who had to work well into their 80s because they lost their nest egg?

Are you saying when one turns 80 they should get 2.5 million dollars?

I don’t understand your point. Most people will work their whole lives and not retire on $75,000 a year.

So, again, what does her age have to do with it?

I don't think she knew. Just think how he ran the operation. It appeared that only a very few knew and that is how they kept it under wraps. She lost her family. Whether she should have received 2.5 million I don't know about that.

I don't admire Ruth Madoff. I'm fascinated by her. Semantics are important. Most of us here share an interest in tragic old cunts.

For r242:

she took 10 million out of the office the day before he go arrested. VF article. she also said no one needed to know about it.

Wish some of the bank and hedge fund assholes would have been sent to jail w Maddoff.

Wild about the niece marrying SEC . Are they still married?

The Dreyfus 2-part movie showed the niece marrying the guy from the SEC.

Bernie couldn't believe it and was nervous about the whole thing.

They showed the whole big wedding.

I didn't know about the niece. Bizarre.

[quote]Are you 80 years old like she is?

Irrelevant

Alexandria OC pretty much called out the Jews in that Tweet where she attacked the super-rich.

Interesting how the Far Left is attacking Jews yet majority ($usd) of donations to the Democratic Party are from Jews. Tlaib just said the Holocaust is calming to her...good god!

[quote]As posters upthread have noted, that doesn't include what they would have made invested elsewhere.

This is how I know most of the people on this thread have no fucking clue what the hell they are talking about. Under no theory of recovery as pertains to actual damages, not in this case or any case like it, would the victim recover his or her profit.

It is so stupid that you would even think that.

The objective to make people whole again. You get what you put in. If you have not seen that extra cash, meaning you have not withdrawn it and reinvested, it doesn't matter what the amount was on paper. What matters is what you put in.

I didn’t take that to mean they wanted profits too, r269. I took that to mean when calculating losses they didn’t include what could have been earned if invested somewhere else.

Sort of like when you take a withdrawal from your 401(k), they estimate how much it will cost you in retirement savings by withdrawing.

[quote] This is how I know most of the people on this thread have no fucking clue what the hell they are talking about. Under no theory of recovery as pertains to actual damages, not in this case or any case like it, would the victim recover his or her profit.

But that is the very definition of fraud.

Every single year, these people--or their managers--would look over the performance of their investments, meaning that every single year, they would ask themselves, "Do we keep the money with Madoff or do we move it to another manager?"

The Madoff people would fraudulently state, "Why would you go to someone else? We're making 12% per year." Some investors kept their money with Madoff for decades. They used their account as collateral to buy their homes, their car, their children's college educations. Meanwhile, not only was it not making the 3% (or whatever) that it would have made sitting in a bank account, it actually dropped down to 85% of the original investment (decades prior) and was unrecoverable, untouchable for nearly a decade.

Since they were defrauded, they absolutely have grounds. But since the money doesn't actually exist--because it was mostly in a bank account or has been spent by employees as their salary--they won't get it.

By the way, that Picower investor who put $1 billion into it, but got 7 billion out (because he got out early before it was known)--karma got that asshole.

People make bad investments all the time - investing in individual stocks - they can go south and do so often because of poor management. I feel defrauded by some of the investments I have made and the companies were run by corrupt CEO's. Is Bernie any different? In both cases they are hucksters. I think it is time to leave Ruth alone - the woman has suffered more than any of us can possibly imagine - guilt, grief, anger, embarrassment, humiliation. She essentially lost everything.

[quote] R250: When was this? That makes me think he wanted to get caught. (The ~12% written guarantee.)

I don’t recall when it was, other than that it was towards the beginning of the Dreyfus movie. It looked like he was regularly in trouble with regulators through the years, though they obviously stopped looking short, for years.

For those who didn’t watch the movie, at one point, the regulators asked for his authorization number to allow him to trade (or similar). Bernie gave a fake number because he had no authorization number. Never had. The regulators just needed to make one phone call to verify the authorization number, but they didn’t bother. They just assumed the number was good.

[quote] R269: This is how I know most of the people on this thread have no fucking clue what the hell they are talking about. Under no theory of recovery as pertains to actual damages, not in this case or any case like it, would the victim recover his or her profit.

Maybe people just aren’t being articulate? Or aren’t thinking of a “theory of recovery”? I think people are just thinking of the loss experienced by Bernie’s clients.

If you tell me, that a Bernie investor got back 85% of what he put in since he started in the 1960s, so he’s really not doing so badly and is essentially made whole, my feeling would be that 85% is much higher than I had heard previously, so that’s great.

But if the client had put the money in a legitimate index fund (or similar), perhaps they’d have 500% today, instead of 85%, so they are still huge victims of Bernie. Maybe 1000%? I can’t imagine. Maybe they’d have put it all in pets.com and have nothing, but that’s not most likely for the majority of clients.

I think the people posting are just thinking of the damage Bernie did. 85% is a huge success by the recovery team, but the situation is still a financial disaster for the clients.

This was no Madoff incident but about 7 years ago my brother (CPA) called me about an investment one of his friends had in CA. Supposedly this business man was paying 6% every month!!! My brothers friend had already earned $100,000 (on paper). My brother asked me if I wanted to invest $25,000 and him $25,000, which we did. What a scam. They guy embezzled $9 million and went to jail but the money is gone. We were idiots for investing so we deserved it...

I keep reading the heading as “Ruth Madoff: An Enema“. I bet 85% of you do too. And nobody’s mentioned it yet! Oh, DataLounge!

R275, what business did he claim to be in?

There are so few photos of the Madoffs because during Bernie's house arrest he and Ruth burned all of the family photos they had so they wouldn't be flashed about. Most of the available photos of them were in someone else's possession.

Luckily someone had this sitting around.

[quote] I've been here maybe three months

You post A LOT for a newbie.

My brother-in-law has been “taken” a few times. Proving the adage, “you can’t cheat an honest man”. He’s also lost money on normal things because he’s lazy, or his antics have given him bad credit, and so forth, but he lost money on these items because he wanted to act illegally:

He got a tip on the golf course to buy into this guy’s company. I think that’s illegal insider trading. Anyway, he bought at 7. The stock did really well. I told him to sell, at least his original investment, at 14. He thought the owner would tell him when to sell, but I think the owner was just bragging when he originally recommended to buy, and never gave my BIL another thought. My BIL eventually sold it all at 2 when the stock collapsed. I bet the CEO still has a yacht, or whatever, all legally paid for.

My BIL got a tip from a neighbor to buy into a Chinese company that was restricted to experienced investors. I don’t understand it, but by BIL was prohibited from buying. So, he gave his thousands to his friend to invest in the stock for him, which is illegal. The company went bankrupt, and he lost everything. What’s even worse, is that because the investment wasn’t in his name, he couldn’t write-off the losses against the gains he was getting elsewhere.

The worst was when he wanted to hide a $100,000 inheritance from his sister, and from the tax man. He must be lying to me because there is no tax involved at that level. Anyway, he “invested” in collectible coins. Three of them. He kept them for 20 years and then sold them for $30,000. That’s worse than the Madoff people did. He could write-off the $70,000 loss against future gains, but because he wanted to hide the whole thing from the tax man, and from his sister, he didn’t save the original receipt and it’s all a $70,000 loss on his principal, plus whatever he might have honestly earned over 20 years. The tax loss alone is $10,500, I believe.

There’s more, of course, but that’s enough.

So, the Madoff people might have known there was something skeevy about the whole thing, but figured they’d personally get out on time; or be protected by Bernie; or be saved somehow else, just like my BIL in the post above.

[quote]I've been here maybe three months

Ruth Madoff living off whatever is a known liar and OLD time poster, not 30 years old. Not even 30+30 years old. Referenced Patsy Ramsey & took only 30 minutes to post one time as Miss Warwick. After it was mentioned they sounded like one and the same.

Amateur writers who post many times everyday can't disguise their identity as easy as they change devices. The Ruth Madoff living on 2.5 million blah blah is also the SCAT poster. Of course he feels sorry for Ruth, life is shit. But the real point is degradation of something refined. He's a sick bitch with elaborate needs.

[quote]He's a sick bitch with elaborate needs.

Thank you for that. That's the only true statement in r283.

[quote]not 30 years old.

I believe that. The poster sounds like an old-timer to me.

I'm a 30 year old gay nerd. I post about old stuff because it's all available on the internet and that's what I'm interested in, always have been. I should do a vlog sometime...

I'm glad that's over with.

Ha. Well I apologize. R287 IS Ruth Madoff?

Seriously dude, you are weird. But I approve of your wet message and I apologize for saying you are older than 30? Can we say 42? Regardless, have a good night and don't murder anyone else.

I'm fascinated by your bathtub.

Is it made out of wood? And how?

To the poster with the hapless brother, perhaps it was state income tax he was trying to circumvent? (I remember your telling us about the coin story a few years back.)

R281 Cool stories. I don't really understand the financial aspects (writing losses against etc), but it is interesting. Def agree that it's all down to greed. Thinking you'll beat the system into winning whatever. The house always wins. And no, you can't cheat an honest man. Your BIL sounds like a real dipshit, haha!

To the millenial: that video was funny! Few DLers dare show their faces. We're handsome!

I think bathtub guy is Dan Mallory. Hi, Dan!

To the poster upthread who read The Adversary R58:

Emmanuel Carrere is a very good writer. The Adversary might be his crowning achievement - he veered towards non-fiction after that.

Here is a portrait he wrote for The Guardian. The translation is very good, too.

She's a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an old Jewish broad.

r289 It's a supersized old cast-iron tub, painted orange with a wood rim around the top. I live in a carriage house and the tub was originally in the master bathroom of the main house.

R295, thanks for answering. It's really kind of cool looking--you don't find things like that (or carriage houses) down here in Florida.

(We have detached garages from the 40s and 50s, but not real carriage houses.)

Bernie and Ruth's 80s time warp bathroom on the beach in Montauk. It's been gutted.

OMG I just noticed Ruth had shiplap.

I think that was part of his 'deal': leave Manny-nanny alone and I'll talk (and lie).

Bernie always seemed tacky as fuck. Spending thousands of dollars on a simple pair of grandpa khakis. Lots of loafers. But, I love his private black bathroom in the penthouse. The last time it sold it was still intact.

The 80s one is so much nicer than the mausoleum below.

In the Wizard of Lies suicide scene Bernie and Ruth attempt suicide with a full bottle of Ambien. They go to sleep watching Judy Garland singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas in Meet Me in St. Louis. It just occurred to me that once you've taken enough pills to kill yourself, that's what you do, turn on Judy Garland.

[quote] At least she kept her figure.

And she can still afford $85 workout shoes.

R 287 You're very cute

Suddenly everyone wants to fuck you, Living on $1.9 M in Connecticut, including me!

What’s your hourly rate? $150?

R304

Don't put a space between the "R" and the number. If you do that the reference function does not work.

R287 You are so cute and around my age too. I wish there was a way tomessage

R283 Fuck off and die.

I never clicked on a Ruth Madoff thread. So why am I suddenly here on my watch list, especially after having been banned from posting for several hours?

Ruth is actually living on who knows how much, showing houses in Toledo, OH. I find her posts more interesting than a lot of others.

I know who she is but why are her various threads showing up on my watch list when I have never clicked on her threads or commented on her?