Ruth Madoff agreed to pay nearly $600,000 and pledged to surrender her remaining assets when she dies under a settlement with the liquidating trustee cleaning up after the Ponzi scheme perpetuated by her husband, Bernard Madoff, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Madoff, who was never charged with any crime pertaining to her husband’s $20 billion fraud, will pay $250,000 in cash and hand over two New York trusts for her grandchildren that are valued at $344,000, according to settlement documents filed on Friday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. She also will transfer her remaining assets at the time of her death to liquidating trustee Irving Picard, who has spent the past decade suing people and institutions linked to the sham investment firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC to dig up money for its investors. After the forfeiture of her and her husband’s properties, the U.S. government agreed to let her keep $2.5 million, but that didn’t resolve Picard’s claims against her. Until her death, Madoff, 77, can spend her money on “reasonable living and medical-care payments,” according to the settlement. Read more.
Be sure to listen to ABI's latest podcast as ABI Editor-at-Large Bill Rochelle talks with Josephine Wang, president and CEO of the Securities Investor Protection Corp. (SIPC), about recovery efforts in the Madoff case.
