Not so fast, Ruthie.
The bankruptcy trustee liquidating Bernard Madoff’s busted securities firm yesterday filed suit seeking a $45 million judgment against Ruth Madoff, charging she was “massively enriched” by her husband’s Ponzi scheme.
In the suit filed yesterday, trustee Irving Picard said Ruth for decades “lived a life of splendor using the money of [her husband’s] customers.”
The federal Bankruptcy Court filing in Manhattan notes that Ruth got to keep $2.5 million in cash as part of a June settlement with the feds.
“While [Bernard] Madoff’s crimes have left many investors impoverished and some charities decimated, Mrs. Madoff remains a person of substantial means,” the suit says.
Ruth has not been charged in connection with the record scam, which sent her husband to prison for a 150-year sentence.
But, Picard’s suit says, “regardless of whether or not Mrs. Madoff knew of the fraud . . . she received tens of millions of dollars from [Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities].”
Picard told The Post, “This isn’t limited to what she has today. If she has earnings or gets money, from whatever sources, why shouldn’t the victims benefit?” Identified in Picard’s suit is more than $3 million in personal spending that Ruth rang up on an American Express card.
Her lawyer, Peter Chavkin, said Picard’s suit was “wrong as a matter of law and fairness,” and called the action “perplexing and totally unjustified” because his client had already forfeited nearly all of the assets identified in the suit.