Ruth Madoff

Mrs. M. Sued for $45MM

Irving Pickard, the trustee appointed by U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York to help victims of Bernie Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme, has sued Bernie’s wife, Ruth, for $45 million. Previously he had taken almost everything she has, including their NY penthouse and everything in it, and gave her $2.5 million that he could not tie to the crimes.

But Pickard believes that she received fraudulent transfers that she is not entitled to even if she was unaware of her husband’s crimes, according to CNN Money. If a criminal gives you money you may have to return it even if you did not know it came from a criminal. This is why Pickard is suing a number of major Bernie investors who took money out of the scam through the years, to get the money back and distribute it to all the victims.

Separately, in a courthouse interview Bernie apparently said he doesn’t care what happens to his sons, since they have not spoken to him since he told them about the crime a day or so before his arrest.

Here’s what we keep waiting for. Who helped this guy? The “feeders” who found investors are already in trouble, but they did not work at Madoff Securities, talk to the clients regularly and prepare fully bogus statements of account. There had to be dozens of people in on this. When will we know about them? I’m sure we will, soon enough.