Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Only in America

Marriage is a great institution. Imagine how messy Bernie Madoff's scheme would be if he and Mrs. Madoff were in a civil union. Or worse, shacking up.

March 3 (Bloomberg) -- Ruth Madoff said she owns a Manhattan apartment, $45 million in bonds and $17 million in cash that are “unrelated” to an alleged Ponzi scheme by her husband, Bernard Madoff.

U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton, who is presiding over a lawsuit against Madoff by the Securities and Exchange Commission, filed an order yesterday modifying terms of an asset freeze on Bernard Madoff’s property. As part of his order, he cited a claim by Ruth Madoff that some of her assets are separate from his.

Madoff’s lawyers claim “only Ruth Madoff has a beneficial ownership” to a Manhattan apartment, about $45 million in municipal bonds on deposit at Cohmad Securities Corp., and approximately $17 million in cash in another account, Stanton said. Ruth Madoff says these assets are “unrelated” to the alleged fraud, Stanton wrote, citing her husband’s lawyer.

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