The Ponzi Widow's Mite

Honestly, I'm not following the Bernie Madoff scandal all that obsessively. Still, just when I think there'll be nothing to say until we get the final accounting on where the $50B actually went, another golden nugget emerges.

This week it's Ruth Madoff's claim that her assets are her very own - "unrelated" to the Ponzi scheme - and are thus off-limits to those trying to freeze the Madoff assets.

Only Ruth, we are told, holds "beneficial ownership" of a Manhattan apartment. I have no idea what "beneficial ownership" means, and I'm too darned lazy to look it up. But if the Manhattan apartment is the one that Bernie's under house arrest in, I'd maintain that he's getting something beneficial out of day to day living that would be largely absent at Riker's Island.

Mrs. Madoff - a Ponzi widow, as it were, in the sense that one can be a golf or tennis or video game widow - contends that $45 million in munis, and $17M in cash have no relation to the Ponzi scheme.

Now Ruthie hasn't been accused of any wrongdoing at this point, but what's a suspicious mind to make of the fact that:

Cohmad Securities, where Ruth Madoff says her account holds municipal bonds, had an office in Madoff’s headquarters in midtown Manhattan. The firm was part-owned by Bernard Madoff and has been alleged by the Massachusetts Securities Division to be a “feeder fund” to his investment firm.

Last month, Massachusetts regulators said Ruth Madoff withdrew $15.5 million from Cohmad Securities in November and December, including $10 million on the eve of her husband’s arrest for securities fraud.

And if the money isn't related to the Ponzi shcme, then what, pray tell, is it related to?

Was Ruthie a good little saver? Did she clip coupons from the Sunday inserts and zero out her weekly grocery tab at Key Foods? Was this the sugar bowl accumulation of a long marriage?

Or did she have some fab career of her own that we don't know about? Did she manage to make a tidy little bundle during it? Maybe "her" money is not anything in the $50B magnitude, but there'd sure be a smile on my face if I had even one of the following -  $8M Manhattan apartment; $45M in munis; and $17M in cash - to show for my long career in largely failed high tech companies. Hell, there'd be a smile on my face if I had a dollar for every option I was granted over the years.  (At least I was smart enough not to exercise any of those little underwater babies.)

But from what I gather, most of Ruth Madoff's career was in support of her husband's company.

That is, when she wasn't "authoring" a cookbook - sales of which I'm pretty sure didn't clear her a fortune.

The 1996 cookbook was “The Great Chefs of America Cook Kosher". A NY Times article on the work noted:

In the cookbook’s biographical section, Mrs. Madoff referred to herself as “director of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities.” She used the same title two years later in a 1998 roster of trustees at the Queens College Foundation.

So, before Ruth Madoff is allowed to keep "her" mite, I'm sure that the powers that be will want to know  exactly what the Ponzi widow knew and when she knew it.

Hey, if it turns out that Mrs. Madoff was completely conned by her husband, and had no involvement whatsoever in the scheme, I will have some sympathy for her.  Here she is, in her late 60's, and her life is in shambles. And those shambles include most if not all of her friends, family, social acquaintances, and fellow philanthropists having been screwed over by her husband. I don't imagine there are a lot of her old crowd taking her phone call or meeting her eye these days.

And I'm guessing there'll be even fewer now.

Even the most sympathetic screwee might be a tad resentful that Ruth Madoff will have $70M when they are, if not exactly beggared, have perhaps lost more than that at Bernie's hands.

There's forgiveness and then there's forgiveness.

Someone might forgive her claiming a lesser amount in pin money, but this widow's mite is a pretty big widow's bite to be taking.

But I guess you don't get to accrue $70M without having at least a little bit of brass in you.