NEW YORK — More than $100 million in real estate, cash, bonds, art, autos, boats and other property owned by admitted investment fraudster Bernard Madoff and his wife, Ruth, is subject to forfeiture, prosecutors said. The government said in a court filing Sunday that it intends to seize assets including the Madoffs’ $7 million Upper East Side apartment in Manhattan and homes in Montauk, N.Y.; Palm Beach, Fla.; and France.
Prosecutors will also seek $17 million in cash and $45 million in bonds in accounts in Ruth Madoff’s name, acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin said.
Madoff, 70, pleaded guilty March 12 to defrauding investors of as much as $65 billion in the biggest Ponzi scheme in history.
His attorneys filed a request with the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York that he be freed from prison until he is sentenced June 16. Madoff faces 150 years behind bars for using money from new investors to pay off old ones in a global fraud that ran from at least the early 1990s.
The government’s “notice of intent to seek forfeiture” is not an actual seizure request. Rather, it alerts U.S. District Judge Denny Chin and the Madoffs that prosecutors will be filing documents seeking seizure. The notice doesn’t say when the request will be made. Madoff’s appellate argument is scheduled for Thursday.
Ruth Madoff hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing. Her lawyer, Peter Chavkin, and Madoff’s lawyer, Dan Horwitz, declined to comment. Bloomberg News
