Federal authorities seized disgraced financier Bernard Madoff’s Palm Beach mansion, his vintage yacht and a smaller boat on Wednesday, part of an effort to recoup assets to pay back investors he swindled.
Barry Golden, a spokesman for the US Marshals Service, said about five marshals arrived at the 813m², five-bedroom mansion late on Wednesday afternoon, hours after the boats were seized. Authorities planned to enter and secure the mansion, change the locks and conduct an inventory of the property, which Palm Beach County records show had a taxable value of US$9.3 million last year.
Golden said marshals would spend about three to four hours filming and photographing items in the house that might be removed at some point.
“It’s not an April Fools’ joke,” he said.
The mansion was unoccupied when federal authorities arrived, and the inspection was taking longer than expected because there were so many locks that needed to be changed.
Palm Beach County property records show the mansion was purchased in 1994 under his wife Ruth’s name for US$3.8 million. Last year’s property tax bill was US$157,298. Golden said the estate would be “monitored and maintained” and is no longer considered Madoff’s property. Marshals posted a “no trespassing” sign on one of the windows.
“Once the judge signed the order, it stopped being Bernie Madoff’s home,” Golden said.
Earlier in the day, Golden said Madoff’s 17m yacht Bull and a 7.3m motor boat were taken from marinas on Florida’s east coast. The yacht, a 1969 Rybovich, is worth US$2.2 million.
“A lot of money was put into maintaining this boat,” Golden said. “This boat was extremely well kept, extremely clean. Engine compartment was spotless. It looked like somebody took a bottle of 409 and scrubbed it every day.”
Madoff, 70, is in jail in New York awaiting sentencing after he pleaded guilty to swindling billions of dollars from investors in what could be the biggest scam in Wall Street history. He faces up to 150 years behind bars.
Prosecutors are seizing as much as they can of Madoff’s personal fortune, and have begun demanding millions of dollars in payments from his relatives. Roughly 6,700 people have filed claims for a share of whatever is recovered. Thousands more — some who lost in excess of US$1 million — are expected to come forward.
Court documents filed by Madoff’s attorneys indicate he and his wife had up to US$826 million in assets — including the boats — at the end of last year.
If prosecutors get their way, Madoff and his wife, who has not been charged, will have to give up all their assets, including a US$7 million Manhattan penthouse bought in 1984, the Florida home, a US$1 million home in Cap d’ Antibes, France and a US$3 million luxury home on New York’s Long Island. The government also wants Madoff and his wife to forfeit US$10 million in furnishings for all the homes and luxury cars, among other items.
Defense attorneys have indicated they may try to keep the Manhattan apartment, as well as about US$62 million in securities, for his wife.
“We have no objection to the seizure or to the assets being sold,” lawyer Ira Sorkin said in brief remarks on Wednesday. “The proceeds of the sale will be put aside for discussion at a later date.”
A small group of aggrieved investors — fearing they might be shortchanged by the forfeiture process — took steps on Wednesday to try to force Madoff into personal bankruptcy so they can directly pursue his assets.
A court-appointed trustee already has begun liquidating Madoff’s business assets. Court papers filed by the Milberg and Seeger Weiss law firms in Manhattan asked a judge to lift an order that currently prevents involuntary bankruptcy for Madoff himself.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS