The list of Bernie and Ruth Madoff’s assets, which the US government is attempting to seize following his 11 pleas of guilty to counts including money laundering, is instructive as well as entertaining. It prompts three thoughts.
First, as far as Ruth Madoff’s attempt to retain about $70m of the couple’s estimated assets of about $825m goes, pull the other one.
According to the couple’s filing of their net worth, Ruth Madoff is not only richer than her husband but a smarter investor. She, for example, holds $17m in cash in a Wachovia account while their joint Bank of New York account contains only $21,717.
She also owns $2.6m in jewellery and $45m in municipal bonds held in a Cohmad account (a feeder fund for the Madoff investment operation), while her husband has only $200,000 in securities.
I am all in favour of wives and husbands being allowed to own property and assets separately, but come on. I can’t believe that the vast majority of what is listed as Ruth Madoff’s property comes from anywhere but the Ponzi scheme run by her husband.
Second, save for your retirement. The couple have no retirement savings in the form of Individual Retirement Accounts, 401(k) plans or the like. Given that Mr Madoff admits not only to having run a Ponzi scheme but to knowing he would one day be found out, this is strange.
If his investment operation had been legitimate, there would hardly have been much need to place money in a retirement account, since they owned a $700m share in a financial business. But Mrs Madoff would have had a better case for retaining some savings had they been in a segregated pension account.
Third, 70-year-old Mr Madoff appears to be a very healthy man. There have been some rumours floating around that he was suffering from prostate cancer and would not live long in jail.
Well, not if his own filing is to be believed. His medical expenses for the past year totalled $200 in visits to the doctor and you do not get much specialist medical care in Manhattan for that.
As things stand, it looks as if he could be serving quite a decent chunk of the 150 years in prison that the government seeks as a punishment.
