Judge lets Bernard Madoff remain free
NEW YORK -- A Manhattan judge rejected a bid to jail Bernard Madoff pending trial, ruling Monday that prosecutors hadn't showed enough proof the alleged operator of a $50 billion Ponzi scheme posed a risk of fleeing, obstructing justice or endangering the community.
But Magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis barred Madoff, 70, who sent more than $1 million in gifts to relatives and friends around the year-end holidays, from transferring any property as a new condition of his $10 million bail. The prohibition also applies to Madoff's wife, Ruth.
Ellis also ordered Madoff to give prosecutors an inventory of all valuable portable items in the $7 million apartment on Manhattan's tony Upper East Side where he remains under house arrest.
A private security firm must update the inventory every two weeks, and prosecutors and defense lawyers must agree on the items' value by next week, Ellis wrote in the 22-page ruling.
A private security firm approved by the government must search all outgoing mail to ensure that Madoff doesn't transfer any property, he ruled.
A legal burden unmet
"For the government's detention application to succeed," wrote Ellis, "the court would have to find that the government has met its burden of showing by clear and convincing evidence, that no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure the safety of any other person and the community; or by a preponderance of the evidence, that there is no condition or combination of conditions that would reasonably assure the 'presence of the defendant at trial if released.'
"The government has failed to meet its burden as to either ground," Ellis concluded.
Acting U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin declined to comment. Madoff defense attorney Ira Lee Sorkin said, "The decision speaks for itself, and we intend to comply."
The ruling drew mixed reaction, heightening outrage among worldwide victims of what may be the largest Ponzi scheme in history, while drawing support from some legal experts.
"It is outrageous," said Bette Greenfield, 71, a Florida retiree who estimates her family trust lost $350,000 in the alleged Madoff scam. "Why should he have the comforts of living in a gorgeous place when so many others, like me, will now have to sell our homes?"
