New York Times on Ruth Madoff | 04/28/2009 11:05 am

Where Ruth Madoff Went Wrong

By The Staff at wowOwow.com

Perhaps red flags should have been raised when Bernard and Ruth Madoff were buying their third house in Palm Beach. Or, better yet, maybe when it was when the once-wealthy New York power couple bought their second yacht. Whenever that moment should have been, one New York Times blogger says Mrs. Madoff should have wondered, "How are we paying for this?"

With many questions swirling around exactly what Ruth Madoff knew about her husband’s shady business dealings, prosecutors are looking to find whatever dirt they can on her and the rest of the Madoff family. Many just simply can’t believe that Mrs. Madoff was blissfully ignorant about the whole affair — including her hubby’s $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

Randy Cohen of the Times writes:

Having benefited from a husband’s activities — for decades, not days — a spouse may not remain willfully ignorant. Adults must have some grasp of their impact upon other people, including financially. The greater your wealth, the greater your impact on others, the greater your responsibility not to be conveniently oblivious. Marriage is a partnership. If you reap its rewards, you bear some responsibility for the way they accrue. This does not make you equally culpable for your partner’s misdeeds or immune to deception, but it is does deny you the joys of spending actual loot and the comforts of ignoring that you’re doing so.

Meanwhile, a wealthy Greenwich, CT, family, whose hedge fund fed $7 billion to Madoff, are facing new fraud claims from investors. The Fairfield Greenwich Group, co-founded by Walter Noel, Jeffrey Tucker and Andres Piedrahita, is being blamed for negligence after placing billions of their rich clients’ money with Madoff without doing due diligence, reports Bloomberg.

"The evidence that has come to light shows that certain of the Fairfield defendants had acted so recklessly in promoting the Fairfield Sentry Funds that they’re liable for fraud," said lead lawyer Stuart Singer of Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP. "Had Fairfield Greenwich investigated Madoff, the fraud would have been exposed many years ago."

Walter Noel and his family were profiled by Vanity Fair in 2002 — at the height of their financial success, thanks to Madoff. But the magazine reported in its April issue that the Noel family was now seen as social pariahs for using their social ties to bring Madoff wealthy clients.

12 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

Interesting. I can’t imagine why a red flag would go up when a successful businessman buys a third home. We really don’t know if money was inherited and it isn’t any of our business.

I blame the people who invested their money with Madoff. It is amazing to me that Madoff never made any trades and no one knew about it. The investor is equally as responsible for policing their own accounts as the broker. Trust no one….especially when it comes to your investments. People need to read their statements and track their requests every single month. If for nothing else, to make certain that you aren’t being charged for trades you didn’t approve.

Madoff is a crook and needs to spend the rest of his life in prison. No one knows if Ruth knew about this or not. My guess is that she didn’t….when the money is rolling in one has to think there’s a brilliant husband or wife behind the desk. In this case, there was….a brilliant mind that stole millions from his clients.

Book him, Dano.

By deberB on 04/28/2009 11:15 am

e-mail alert

I’m pretty sure that the article said that Madoff’s WIFE should have noticed the red flags and wondered what was going on. She would know if they inherited money or not.

By DeBrcaobj on 04/28/2009 5:21 pm

e-mail alert

Ruth knew. She helped keep the books for the company at one time. She is as guilty as her husband on this one.

By LynnDeeUSA on 04/28/2009 11:19 am

e-mail alert

I agree.

By RachelF on 04/28/2009 2:08 pm

e-mail alert

Give me a living breathing BREAK!! That woman knew exactly what the old boy was up to if you believe all the glorious (?) recountings in the press and on the news about how "hopelessly devoted" the two of them were to each other. Then there’s the business of buying a second YACHT and a THIRD home in Palm Beach. Where I come from a HOME is where a FAMILY LIVES. It’s not some place were you dump off the excess of which there was apparently PLENTY. A second yacht FOR WHAT??? This whole situation is way beyond defense on every level. One can’t help but wonder how much Bernie is digging" his new digs. Ruth needs to move in right along side of him.

By MaryUtrup on 04/28/2009 11:32 am

e-mail alert

Yeah……mutually devoted to scamming others……….

By MKP on 04/28/2009 12:18 pm

e-mail alert

Unless she copped that, I was born at a time you never questioned your husband’s business." That would be interesting if she said that.

By BethCornell on 04/28/2009 11:52 am

e-mail alert

I know a couple of otherwise smart women who were perfectly happy as long as the money was rolling in, to not ask questions and not even ‘think’ about where it was coming from… then, when the husband got caught they acted appalled and innocent. But I know that they CHOSE to ignore facts as long as the money was coming in.

By DeBrcaobj on 04/28/2009 5:23 pm

e-mail alert

My ex-husband has a business associate whose wife is clueless about anything with a dollar sign. We were over their house one day and she was in the kitchen with a deathlike mask on her face, staring at a letter from the bank.She told me her husband was terribly angry at her and handed her the letter, which she handed to me to read. It was an overdraft notice; she had several checks bounce. Her words, and I’ve never forgotten them, were, "I don’t understand. There were enough checks." When I got her to explain what she meant it seems she believed that as long as she had blank checks, she could write them for any amount she wished, no limit. [Uh-huh, it’s true.]

Sometimes I think women like Madoff are intentionally ignorant of the financial picture because they intuit that something odd is going on, but they don’t want to know because it might mean a cessation of throwing money around.

Send her to jail, I say, because a woman’s ignorance in this day and age is no excuse. EVERY woman should understand exactly what her financial standing is. Demand to review it frequently and if he refuses, well…..you know what you can refuse.

By AndreaBrandon on 04/28/2009 6:00 pm

e-mail alert

When I married a second time. it was to a man 25 years older who was CEO of his own company he’d had for decades before meeting me. He belonged to the most prestigious men’s club in the US, and had taught finance at NYU in his early years. I’d met some of his women employees who all had master’s degrees and earned great money for that time, the men who worked for him for 25-years were the highest caliber. I knew next to nothing about his work or finances, and at the time wasn’t interested either, I had my own work and other things to be concerned with. It seems that Ruth Madoff did know if she worked with her husband….I’m just saying I can understand a wife absolutely being clueless about her husband’s work and finances because I was.

By SuzannedeCornelia3 on 04/30/2009 3:44 am

e-mail alert

For years, the good life was rolling by every day and no one was sniffing around. Maybe when Ruth worked the books, it was in those years before Bernie got greedy. Since there were no worries and no complaints for so long, maybe Ruth just thought she had one smart husband. And she did… smart like a fox.

By MaggieW on 04/30/2009 7:57 pm

e-mail alert

This is a case of "keep the status quo" even if it means living in denial. Sort of like the wife who knows her husband is a womanizer, but doesn’t want to face facts head on and deal with them in real time…

By DianaT on 05/03/2009 8:45 pm