Madoff ordered to forfeit $170B; lawyers seek 150-year sentence

NEW YORK -- Diisgraced financier Bernard Madoff has been ordered to forfeit over $170 billion, prosecutors said Friday.

U.S. District Judge Denny Chin entered a preliminary order of forfeiture Friday, according to Acting U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin. The order forces Madoff to give up his interests in all property, including real estate, investments, cars and boats.

According to earlier court documents, prosecutors reserved the right to pursue more than $170 billion in criminal forfeiture. That represents the total amount of money that could be connected to the fraud, not the amount stolen or lost.

The government also settled claims against Madoff's wife, according to Friday's order. Under the arrangement, the government obtained Ruth Madoff's interest in all property, including more than $80 million of property to which she had claimed was hers, prosecutors said.

The order makes it clear, though, that nothing precludes other departments or entities from seeking to recover additional funds.

The agreements strip the Madoffs of all their interest in properties belonging to them, including a homes in Manhattan, Montauk, and Palm Beach, Fla., worth a total of nearly $22 million.

Prosecutors said the order also stripped Madoff and his wife of a trading account at Cohmad Securities valued at approximately $46.7 million, a Wachovia Bank account valued at roughly $13.3 million, $1.48 million held by the United States Marshals Service from the sale of the couples' French villa and tens of millions of dollars of loans they made to family, employees and friends.

Federal prosecutors want Madoff to be sentenced to 150 years in prison.

"The sheer scale of the fraud calls for severe punishment," the prosecutors wrote in response to a defense motion seeking lighter punishment.

Madoff, 71, is due to be sentenced Monday after pleading guilty in March to charges that his exclusive investment advisory business was actually a massive Ponzi scheme.