Jul 3, 2009 6:31 am US/Eastern
Hit The Road, Ruth: Marshals Seize Madoff Apt.
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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The U.S. Marshals Service has taken possession of the $7 million Manhattan penthouse where financier Bernard Madoff and his wife lived.
AP
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Bernard Madoff is seen in this undated mugshot.
U.S. Marshals Service
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Ruth Madoff is out. The wife of the disgraced financier has been evicted from her Manhattan penthouse after federal marshal's seized the $7 million pad on E. 64th Street.
Shortly after noon, marshals entered the ritzy building to serve a court order seizing the penthouse apartment. The two-story, four bedroom apartment and most of its furnishings, including a $35,000 Persian carpet, and $20,000 tea table, are expected to be auctioned to help repay the victims of Bernie Madoff's multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme, for which he was sentenced to 150 years in prison just days ago.
Neighbors of the Madoff's are not mourning their departure.
"I think it's [been] a terrible thing for the building. There's a lot of very famous people who live in this building and it's a lot of problems they didn't need or anyone around here needed," said Michael Gordon, a resident of the building.
Mrs. Madoff, who is not being charged with any crimes, signed a deal with federal authorities last week agreeing to surrender millions of dollars of assets, including the apartment, in return for getting to keep $2.5 million.
One unanswered question is where she will now live. She doesn't have as much money, and a number of buildings have reportedly rejected her application because of her notoriety. Of course, her lack of a place to live is something she shares with her husband. He has yet to be informed by the Bureau of Prisons where his new home will be, too.
According to her attorney, Mrs. Madoff moved out voluntarily per the agreement with the government.
Mrs. Madoff issued a statement on Monday afternoon following her husband's sentencing.
In her first public comments since her husband's arrest in December, Mrs. Madoff apologized to victims, offered her sympathy, and said she was both embarrassed and confused by the man who she had known and loved for most of her life.
Here is her statement in its entirety:
I am breaking my silence now, because my reluctance to speak has been interpreted as indifference or lack of sympathy for the victims of my husband Bernie's crime, which is exactly the opposite of the truth.
From the moment I learned from my husband that he had committed an enormous fraud, I have had two thoughts - first, that so many people who trusted him would be ruined financially and emotionally, and second, that my life with the man I have known for over 50 years was over. Many of my husband's investors were my close friends and family. And in the days since December, I have read, with immense pain, the wrenching stories of people whose life savings have evaporated because of his crime.
My husband was the one we (and I include myself) respected and trusted with our lives and our livelihoods, often for many, many years, and who was respected in the securities industry as well. Then there is the other man who stunned us all with his confession and is responsible for this terrible situation in which so many now find themselves. Lives have been upended and futures have been taken away. All those touched by this fraud feel betrayed; disbelieving the nightmare they woke to. I am embarrassed and ashamed. Like everyone else, I feel betrayed and confused. The man who committed this horrible fraud is not the man whom I have known for all these years.
In the end, to say that I feel devastated for the many whom my husband has destroyed is truly inadequate. Nothing I can say seems sufficient regarding the daily suffering that all those innocent people are enduring because of my husband. But if it matters to them at all, please know that not a day goes by when I don't ache over the stories that I have heard and read.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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