Madoff seeks to keep apartment, $62-million
GRANT McCOOL
Monday, March 02, 2009
NEW YORK — Lawyers for accused swindler Bernard Madoff say a Manhattan apartment and $62-million (U.S.) in accounts held by his wife are unrelated to the investment manager's purported fraud, according to court documents.
A judge in U.S. District Court in Manhattan partially lifted a freeze on assets of Mr. Madoff and his wife on Monday so he can co-operate with a trustee winding down his firm to recover money for customers.
“Whereas while Madoff and his counsel do not object to the entry of the Relief Order... they maintain that some of the assets covered by the Relief Order are unrelated to the alleged Madoff fraud and only Ruth Madoff has a beneficial ownership interest in these assets,” said the order signed by Judge Louis Stanton.
It mentioned the New York City apartment where Mr. Madoff is under house arrest following his Dec. 11 arrest, about $45-million in municipal bonds in an account held by Ms. Madoff at Cohmad Securities Corp., and $17-million in an account held by her at Wachovia Bank.
During the nearly three months since Mr. Madoff's arrest on allegations that he ran a $50-billion global fraud over many years, authorities have said he had hundreds of millions of dollars in cheques ready to mail out to family and associates.
On Feb. 11, a Massachusetts state regulator said Ms. Madoff withdrew more than $15-million from an account at Cohmad Securities in the days before her husband's arrest.
Mr. Madoff, a once-respected trader and investment manager, is under house arrest and 24-hour surveillance. He is the only person charged in the purported Ponzi scheme, in which early investors are paid with the money of new clients.
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