Prosecutors target assets of Madoff's wife

[depakid]

Source: The Guardian

Federal prosecutors in New York and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are preparing to file a legal action against Ruth Madoff, wife of jailed fraudster Bernie, amid fears that she will try to flee the United States or move her $70m fortune beyond their reach. Department of Justice sources told the Observer that prosecutors were "working around the clock" to build a criminal complaint against Mrs Madoff in an effort to ask a judge to freeze her bank accounts, which they believe are filled with the proceeds of her husband's crimes.

The SEC, America's top financial regulator, is understood to be liaising with the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York to help prepare the asset freezing order. "What will happen," one SEC source said, "is that the US attorneys will be in court in the next week or so to tell a judge that they believe Mrs Madoff's assets are derived from ill-gotten gains and that they should be frozen for a certain period of time while the investigation is ongoing."

The judge will then decide whether there is sufficient reason to believe Mrs Madoff's assets were the proceeds of her husband's $64bn Ponzi scheme.

After Madoff confessed his crimes to the FBI on 11 December, the Department of Justice moved quickly to file a criminal complaint against him while the SEC issued an order to freeze his assets. SEC sources indicated that Mrs Madoff would soon experience something similar. "When you file a criminal complaint in this way you do not need the case to be nailed down, you just need to be able to convince the judge that there is a strong probability that the funds in question came from crime," the SEC source said.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/15/regulators-ruth-madoff-assets

[elleng]

1. AHA! Just what people here have been hoping for!!!

SEC trying to get its game on!

[mrbarber]

2. HAHA!

Best news I've heard all day!

[BrklynLiberal]

3. How could anyone in their right mind believe that her money was not from the proceeds of the scam?

Did she stand out on the corner and make her own money?
This family has more nerve than brains at this point.
We are also supposed to believe that the sons...and the brother were totally unaware of this scam?
The brother was supposed to be in charge of compliance.
How the hell could he not have known?
There is not one dime that family has that was gotten legitimately.
They should all be forced to go the way of the Dukes in "Trading Places."

[Merlot]

6. I think madd-off planetd a lie when he said he confessed to his sons

trying to absolve them so they could keep the money. madd-off thinks everyone is a sucker, and will fall for that lie as well. Sons should be investigated. Wife may not have known but that doesn't meman she gets to keep money.

How about the other employees? Kinda hard to not notice no trades were made.

[BrklynLiberal]

17. I agre, but I believe the wife was in on it too....

[Cirque du So-What]

4. I fail to understand why this hadn't been accomplished already

How long has Made-off been conducting this Ponzi scheme? It should be obvious to the most casual of observers that every penny in his family's personal fortune is directly attributable to his crimes of deception. Therefore, not one member of his family should benefit monetarily from any of that residual cash - ever - especially in light of evidence indicating direct involvement with these family members.

I say confiscate every penny of Made-off's estate. Let his wife apply for public assistance if she's not too good to accept it. Pull any licenses held by his sons and make sure they never gain access to anyone else's money - even if it's from working graveyard shift at a 7-11.

[shraby]

9. It's the concept of innocent until proven guilty.

Until his trial was over, they couldn't touch her money. When he plead guilty, her money is up for grabs as ill-gotten gains.

[merh]

14. From the Vanity Fair article

“We never thought Bernie was going to set the world on fire.” Ruth, however, might have. While Bernie spent his freshman year at the University of Alabama—at that time, some say, an easier entrance portal for students who couldn’t get accepted into eastern colleges—Ruth passed the entrance requirements for Queens College. “She graduated and had a job on the stock market in Manhattan. She was a very smart girl and a very good student.” Once Bernie had gotten through Hofstra University and attended Brooklyn Law School for a year, the couple fled Queens and never looked back. In 1960 they began working together at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, which Bernie founded with his savings of $5,000 from lifeguarding and installing sprinkler systems. From the start, Ruth’s office was right next to her husband’s.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/04/madoff200904?printable=true¤tPage=all

[BobTheSubgenius]

5. I'm not sure exactly how the IRS works, but...

...I don't imagine it's all that different from the way our CRA works. (Canada Revenue Agency) Their MO is to say "This is where we say the money came from, and this is what we say is going to happen to it. Prove us wrong."

The downside, of course, is the politicization of tax collection. A VERY slippery slope indeed.

[Downwinder]

7. Thats one of the things about marrige.

It's a General Partnership, all of the assets become available to either partner.

[Swagman]

8. I think Ruth Madoff WithThe Money as well

[Frank Booth]

10. "Assets of Madoff's wife" is a misnomer, unless she inherited $70 million,

which I highly doubt. I'd bet almost all of this money came from the Ponzi scheme.

[bjobotts]

11. With all those billions gone her assets ar chickenfeed.She already hid the bulk of the doe

[Submariner]

12. Take it all away from the slimy crook

JUSTICE would be Bernie in jail knowing his wife is homeless pushing a shopping cart around NYC picking up cans and bottles to make pocket change for her next meal.

[antimatter98]

13. Fair enough. Miss one tax payment and IRS seizes income and bank accounts for ordinary Americans.

I keep raising the point that ordinary Americans are totally locked down compared
to 'the elite.'

Yes, SEC is looking at his wife's assets, but this happens daily with the IRS
and ordinary tax payers. I know IRS and SEC are different agencies, but I'm saying
that with ordinary people out there, the IRS is the enforcer and they seldom
just 'ignore' late taxes, or non-filings---they go after the person.

Madoff pled how he did so that no information about his massive scheme---which
might have been used to fund gods-know-what for who-knows-who, will ever be
released. That he was taken directly to jail strikes me as showmanship, and let's
stand by and see if his appeal to get out of jail results in his being back at
his penthouse by St. Patrick's day.

Someone does not what the information as to the how and who of his scheme to be
known.

[Gin]

15. the SEC finally doing it's job?????

[mitchum]

16. Let that larcenous bitch live on the street