Madoff wife, son say knew nothing of scheme – CBS

Bernard and Ruth Madoff

NEW YORK, (Reuters) – The wife and son of financial  swindler Bernard Madoff said in their first interview to be  broadcast on Sunday that they knew nothing of his estimated $65  billion Ponzi scheme, but feel shame for his “unforgiveable”  crime.

Bernard and Ruth Madoff

Madoff, 73, is serving a 150-year prison sentence after  confessing to running a decades-long scheme that bilked  investors out of billions, considered the biggest financial  fraud in history.

Defrauded Madoff investors have long viewed the convicted  swindler’s sons, wife and other family member suspiciously,  arguing it is impossible that they did not know about his lies.  No family members have been criminally charged.

Madoff’s younger son Andrew told the CBS program “60  Minutes” that the family was shocked when his sobbing father  confessed his crime to them in December 2008. He said his  mother Ruth’s first question was “What’s a Ponzi scheme?”

“She didn’t even understand that. I think it was me who  answered and said that “It means that it’s all fake,’“ Andrew  Madoff said. “(Bernard Madoff) followed that up and said ‘Yes,  I’ve been lying to all of you – all of these years. I’ve been  lying to everybody. I’ve been lying to myself.’“

Mark and Andrew Madoff — who worked at their father’s firm  — turned him into authorities and he was arrested on Dec. 11,  2008.

Madoff has insisted he acted alone in running the Ponzi  scheme, a fraud in which early investors are paid with money  from new ones. Such schemes often collapse when there are too  few new investors or too many investors try to cash out at  once.

Since he pleaded guilty in March 2009, seven other people  have been arrested in the case, including several of his  long-time employees and an outside accountant.

Mark Madoff, 46, hanged himself in his New York apartment  last year on the second anniversary of his father’s Dec. 11  arrest. Ruth Madoff said that the couple had also tried to kill  themselves by taking pills on Christmas Eve in 2008.

“I can’t explain it, I mean I trusted him,” Ruth Madoff  said when asked how she could not have known of her husband’s  crime. “Why would it ever occur to me that it wasn’t legal?”

“There was nothing that would ever make me suspect  anything,” she said.

“UNFORGIVEABLE”

Andrew Madoff said his father’s investment advisory  business, the Ponzi scheme, was “a completely separate  business” to the trading business where he and his brother  worked.

“We were executing hundreds of thousands of transactions a  day. And that kept all of us incredibly busy. And it just — it  just didn’t occur to me that he could be involved in any kind  of criminal activity,” he said.

Andrew Madoff said one of the hardest things for him to  come to terms with was the feeling that he and his brother were  used by his father, who shielded his Ponzi scheme with their  legitimate trading business.

“It’s unforgiveable,” he said. “No father should do that to  their sons.”

Ruth Madoff and her sons barely spoke in the two years  after his father’s arrest because, Andrew Madoff said, he and  his brother could not understand her decision to stay by their  father’s side.

“I never though of leaving,” Ruth Madoff said. “I didn’t  know what else to do but stay there.”

“I think he got stuck, that’s what he said. And he didn’t  have the courage to face things when they might have been able  to be faced on a much smaller scale,” she said.

After her son Mark committed suicide, she cut off contact  with her husband and now lives in a three-room apartment in  South Florida.

When asked why she hadn’t filed for divorce, Ruth Madoff  said: “It doesn’t matter to me — he’s going to die in  prison.”

The Madoff scandal shook investors around the world and  sparked criticism of market regulators for failing to catch him  despite warnings and tips over many years. A court-appointed  trustee is now trying to recover the money for investors  defrauded by Madoff.

“What he did to me, to my brother, and to my family is  unforgiveable,” Andrew Madoff said. “What he did to thousands  of other people, destroyed their lives — I’ll never understand  it. And I’ll never forgive him for it.”