Ruth Madoff: Accomplice or Housewife?

Former friends say Bernie's wife had to have known it was a Ponzi scheme.

ByABC News
February 19, 2009, 7:29 PM

March 4, 2009— -- Investigators looking into admitted fraudster Bernard Madoff are narrowing their focus onto his possible accomplices, in particular his wife Ruth, Madoff's closest confidante who also had her own office at the headquarters of Madoff's investment operation in Manhattan.

"I find it implausible that she did not know," said Steve Weiss, an attorney representing some of Madoff's angry investors.

"A number of my clients have known them for decades," said Weiss, "they shared no secrets between them."

Ruth and Bernard Madoff attended high school in Queens together. As his wife, she first worked as his bookkeeper when he started out and even had her parents recruit investors.

Many of those investors lost everything and say they are furious that Ruth now says that she should be allowed to stay in the couple's $7 million penthouse in Manhattan and that she should be able to keep an additional $62 million in cash and bonds which she says are not connected to her husband's alleged scam operation.

Watch EXCLUSIVE video of Madoff under house arrest in his luxurious penthouse.