U.S. Marshals seize Madoff penthouse, Ruth moves

ByABC News
July 3, 2009, 12:38 AM

NEW YORK -- U.S. Marshals on Thursday took possession of disgraced financier Bernard Madoff's $7 million Manhattan penthouse, forcing his wife to move elsewhere.

U.S. Marshal Joseph Guccione said the marshals arrived at the property at noon with a court order permitting them to take custody of the apartment and cause anyone there to move out.

Guccione said Madoff's wife, Ruth, had been advised in advance of the marshals' plans and was leaving, surrendering all personal property.

"She will be leaving," he said. "Restitution for the victims is the government's top priority."

Typically, the marshals service changes all locks when it seizes a property.

By about 1 p.m., the 67-year-old Ruth Madoff had left. It was not immediately clear where she went to live.

"Ruth moved out voluntarily pursuant to the prior agreements we reached with the government," said her laywer, Peter Chavkin.

The 71-year-old Madoff was sentenced Monday to 150 years in prison. He pleaded guilty in March to charges that his investment advisory business was a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that wiped out thousands of investors and ruined charities.

Authorities said Bernard Madoff carried out the fraud for at least two decades before confessing to his sons in December that his investment business was a fraud and that he had lost as much as $50 billion.

Last week, Ruth Madoff agreed to give up all her possessions in return for a promise that federal prosecutors would not go after $2.5 million she can keep. That money, though, is not protected from civil legal actions that might be pursued by a court-appointed trustee liquidating Madoff's assets or by investor lawsuits.

Ruth Madoff broke her silence Monday when she said in a statement that her husband "stunned us all with his confession and is responsible for this terrible situation in which so many now find themselves."