Bernard Madoff - Personal Life

Personal Life

On November 28, 1959, Madoff married Ruth Alpern, whom he had met while attending Far Rockaway High School. The two eventually began dating. Ruth graduated high school in 1958 and earned her bachelor's degree at Queens College, she was employed at the stock market in Manhattan before working in Madoff's firm, and she founded the Madoff Charitable Foundation. Bernard and Ruth Madoff had two sons: Mark (March 11, 1964 – December 11, 2010), a 1986 graduate of the University of Michigan, and Andrew (born April 8, 1966), a 1988 graduate of University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Business School. Both later worked in the trading section alongside paternal cousin Charles Weiner.

Several family members worked for Madoff. His younger brother, Peter, an attorney, was Senior Managing Director and Chief Compliance Officer, and Peter's daughter, Shana Madoff, also an attorney, was the compliance attorney. On the morning of December 11, 2010—exactly two years after Bernard's arrest—his son Mark was found dead in his New York City apartment. The city medical examiner ruled the cause of death as suicide by hanging.

Mark Madoff owed his parents $22 million, and Andrew Madoff owes $9.5 million. There were two loans in 2008 from Bernard Madoff to Andrew Madoff: $4.3 million on October 6, and $250,000 on September 21. Andrew owns a Manhattan apartment and a home in Greenwich, Connecticut, as did Mark prior to his death. Following a divorce from his first wife in 2000, Mark withdrew money from an account. Both sons used outside investment firms to run their own private philanthropic foundations. In March 2003, Andrew was diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma and eventually returned to work. He became chairman of the Lymphoma Research Foundation in January 2008, but resigned shortly after his father's arrest.

Peter and Andrew Madoff remain the targets of a tax fraud investigation by federal prosecutors, according to The Wall Street Journal. David Friehling, Bernard Madoff's tax accountant, who pleaded guilty in a related case, is reportedly assisting the investigation. According to a civil lawsuit filed in October 2009, trustee Irving Picard alleges that Peter Madoff deposited $32,146 into his Madoff accounts and withdrew over $16 million; Andrew deposited almost $1 million into his accounts and withdrew $17 million; Mark deposited $745,482 and withdrew $18.1 million.

Madoff lived in Roslyn, New York, in a ranch house through the 1970s and after 1980 owned an ocean-front residence in Montauk. His primary residence was on Manhattan's Upper East Side, and he was listed as chairman of the building's co-op board. He also owned a home in France and a mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, where he was a member of the Palm Beach Country Club. Madoff owned a 55-foot (17 m) sportfishing yacht named Bull. All three homes were auctioned by the U.S. Marshals Service in September 2009.

Sheryl Weinstein, former chief financial officer of Hadassah, disclosed in a book written to recoup her investment losses that she and Madoff had an affair more than 20 years ago. As of 1997, when Weinstein left, Hadassah had invested a total of $40 million. By the end of 2008, Hadassah had withdrawn $140 million from an account valued at $90 million. At the victim impact sentencing hearing, Weinstein testified, calling him a "beast".

According to a March 13, 2009, filing by Madoff, he and his wife were worth up to $126 million, plus an estimated $700 million for the value of his business interest in Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. Other major assets included securities ($45 million), cash ($17 million), half-interest in BLM Air Charter ($12 million), a 2006 Leopard yacht ($7 million), jewelry ($2.6 million), Manhattan apartment ($7 million), Montauk home ($3 million), Palm Beach home ($11 million), Cap d' Antibes, France property ($1 million), and furniture, household goods, and art ($9.9 million).

During a 2011 interview on CBS, Ruth Madoff stated that she and her husband had attempted suicide after his fraud was exposed, both taking "a bunch of pills" in a suicide pact on Christmas Eve 2008.

In November 2011, former Madoff employee David Kugel pleaded guilty to charges that arose out of the Ponzi scheme. He admitted having helped Madoff create a phony paper trail, the false account statements that were supplied to clients.