Full Name Ruth Alpern Name Ruth Madoff | Years active 1960–present Nationality American Spouse Bernard Madoff (m. 1959) | |
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Born 18 May 1941 (age 82) ( 1941-05-18 ) Queens, New York, U.S. Alma mater New York UniversityQueens College Education Queens College, City University of New York Children Andrew Madoff, Mark Madoff Grandchildren Emily Madoff, Anne Madoff, Nick Madoff Similar People Bernard Madoff, Andrew Madoff, Shana Madoff, Harry Markopolos, Irving Picard | ||
Ruth Madoff's Life Today Is Pretty Sad
Ruth Madoff's Millions
Ruth Madoff (née Alpern; born May 18, 1941) is the wife of Bernie Madoff, the convicted American financial fraudster. She was director of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities.
Contents
- Ruth Madoffs Life Today Is Pretty Sad
- Ruth Madoffs Millions
- Early life
- Personal life
- In the media
- References
Early life
Madoff was born in Queens, New York, and raised in Laurelton, to a practicing Jewish family. She has one sister, Joan (Alpern) Roman. She is a graduate of Far Rockaway High School and a 1961 graduate of Queens College. In 1992, Madoff graduated from New York University with a Master of Science degree in nutrition.
Personal life
On November 28, 1959, at age 18, she married Bernard "Bernie" Madoff, whom she had met while attending Far Rockaway High School. She worked for some time as her husband's bookkeeper.
Bernard and Ruth Madoff had two sons: Mark (March 11, 1964 – December 11, 2010), a 1986 graduate of the University of Michigan; and Andrew (April 8, 1966 – September 3, 2014), a 1988 graduate of University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. Both of her sons have predeceased her: Mark, by suicide, in 2010, and Andrew, from lymphoma, in 2014.
On the morning of December 11, 2010 — exactly two years after his father's arrest — Mark was found dead in his New York City apartment. The city medical examiner ruled the cause of death as suicide by hanging.
According to a March 13, 2009, filing by Madoff, he and his wife were worth up to $138 million, plus an estimated $700 million for the value of his business interest in Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. Other major assets included securities ($45 million); cash ($17 million); half-interest in BLM Air Charter ($12 million); a 2006 Leopard yacht ($7 million); jewelry ($2.6 million); a Manhattan apartment ($7 million); a Montauk home ($3 million); a Palm Beach home ($11 million); a Cap d'Antibes, France, property ($1 million); and furniture, household goods and art ($9.9 million).
A Vanity Fair article in 2009 stated that, during the time when she was a bookkeeper, Ruth made an undisclosed US$2.5 million deal and that employees in the London office stated "Ruthie runs all the books". During a 2011 interview on CBS, Ruth stated that she and her husband had attempted suicide after his fraud was exposed, both taking "a bunch of pills" in a suicide pact on Christmas Eve 2008.
Since her husband’s incarceration, most of the Madoff family assets have been seized by the government, including the couple's Upper East Side penthouse in New York. She moved to one of her son Andrew's houses in Connecticut after spending two years living in Boca Raton, Florida, with her sister.