Madoff's suicide attempt

[widgeon13]

Wonder if the victims will get a cut of the profits from the book? Of course they attempted suicide, how else would the book sell?



Ruth Madoff Says Couple Tried Suicide in 2008

Ruth Madoff granted an interview. Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES
Last Updated: 0:02 ET
On Christmas Eve 2008, two weeks after Bernard L. Madoff confessed to running history’s largest Ponzi scheme, he and his wife, Ruth, attempted suicide in their Manhattan penthouse.

Mrs. Madoff said in an interview with The New York Times: “I don’t know whose idea it was, but we were both so saddened by everything that had happened. It was unthinkable to me: hate mail, phone calls, lawyers.”

The situation was “just horrific,” she continued. “And I thought, ‘I just can’t, I can’t take this. I don’t know how I’ll ever get through this, nor do I want to.’ So we decided to do it.”

According to Mrs. Madoff, who has been living in seclusion in Florida, she and her husband “were both in agreement — we were both sort of relieved to leave this place. It was very, very impulsive.”


Bernard and Ruth Madoff at a social event in Palm Beach, Fla., in March of 2008. The Madoffs owned a home in Palm Beach.
Splash News
Mrs. Madoff came under a fierce media spotlight after her husband’s arrest, unable to leave her apartment without being followed by photographers and being shunned by lifelong friends who had been her husband’s victims.

His victims stretched around the world, with paper losses in the vast Ponzi scheme totaling $64.8 billion and cash losses nearing $18 billion. Those who lost money in his long-running fraud included major charities, university endowments, offshore hedge funds and thousands of middle-income investors. Many of those investors were members of the Madoffs’ extended family.

More important to both of them than the media firestorm they faced, she said, was that she had become instantly estranged from her two sons, Mark and Andrew, who had turned in their father to law enforcement officials and precipitated his arrest on Dec. 11, 2008. He pleaded guilty three months later and is serving a 150-year sentence at a federal prison in Butner, N.C.

Christmas Eve had been a sorrowful evening, she said. She and her husband had spent it gathering together and wrapping some treasured jewelry and a few gift items they wanted to send to loved ones before they died.

Guessing at the required postage, Ruth Madoff covered the packages with stamps and mailed them to a few relatives and friends, enclosing short notes of affection and apology.

Mrs. Madoff said in the interview that she and her husband had discussed how many pills each should take — she weighed barely 100 pounds, he was heftier and taller — and then they both swallowed handfuls of what she thought was Ambien before climbing into their chintz-draped canopy bed.

Although she recalled the emotional pain she and her husband felt that evening, she also said she was “glad to wake up” from a long drug-induced slumber the next day. “I’m not sure how I felt about him waking up,” she added.

Mrs. Madoff said the couple never discussed suicide again, nor was she aware of her husband ever making another attempt. “But I have no idea why he didn’t — I don’t know how he lives with it all.”

In an e-mail from prison, her husband acknowledged that suicide “crossed my mind” after his arrest. Two factors deterred him, he said. He felt he could help in the effort to recover assets for his victims, and he “could not abandon my family.”

His family was shattered by his crime, cut off from one another by legal concerns and under constant suspicion in the media. Burdened by anger and grief, Mark Madoff committed suicide in his downtown Manhattan loft on Dec. 11, 2010, the second anniversary of his father’s arrest.

In recent media interviews, Mark’s widow, Stephanie Madoff Mack, disclosed that it was her husband’s second suicide attempt. In October 2009, he checked into a hotel near their home and took a large number of sedatives. He survived and underwent therapy, according to his widow’s account.

After years of silence and seclusion, Ruth Madoff agreed to talk with a Times reporter about the worst years of her life because her son Andrew had asked her to help promote a new authorized biography, “Truth and Consequences: Life Inside the Madoff Family,” to be published Monday by Little, Brown.

The information about the suicide attempt was first reported Wednesday evening by CBS News. An article based on Mrs. Madoff’s entire interview with The Times will appear on nytimes.com on Sunday evening. The interview was granted in exchange for an agreement not to publish the full report until then.

[VaSteve]

Oh poor them...death threats, etc.

How about the actual victims?

**** those people. They didn't have a problem with guilt when times were "good".

[widgeon13]

Got to put the hook out there to sell the book. These people just disgust me. They are still driven by greed. There is a special place in hell for them.

[dennis in se pa]

I wonder if they sacrificed children in order to get even richer? Greedy evil people - there are too many of them. They are what is wrong with the world - always have been.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

I'll gladly offer them the services of my 12 gauge to finish the job and "git 'er dun!"

I just ask that they prop it up against a chair so it doesn't fall over and get scratched once they're done using it, and to make sure their bodies don't fall on top of it. I don't want to have to clean all the blood and guts out of the little crevasses.

The faster bother of them are feeding worms, the better off the world will be. Scum.

[Eric 951]

Yeah--they mailed jewels and other valuables to friends as "gifts" total BS--just trying to hide assets.

She is just as much a scum-bag as the husband.

No sympathy for any of them.

[tharbert]

Why didn't they try something like Tylenol where if they fuched it up, they at least would have done major organ damage. $16 billion in cash? That's unfathomable...

[Christien]

So why isn't there some kind of law that says all book proceeds from a criminal author must go to the victims, or charity, or whatever?

[nota]

there is IF BM had written the book
but his kid is free to write as he has not been convicted

[azasadny]

I have no sympathy for them...

[kiwiokie]

I read an article about a guy that was in prison with Madoff who told an interesting other side to this sad tale. Madoff apparently expressed no guilt or remorse rather disgust at the greed of those that begged and berated him to let them invest in his funds. His funds made spectacular returns (that were all fraudulent of course) such that everyone wanted in on the game and some of those that were not allowed in were not happy about it. Did not sound like he went door to door talking grannies out of their life savings. High return = high risk.

[Buckterrier]

I feel horrible for him.

He should be in the Greed Hall of Fame

[Noah930]

I wonder if it bothers him that he got his son to kill himself.

[intakexhaust]

That hag gets to keep $2 mil and now hides in Boca Raton. Thanks to new technology, I'll bet now she's the bait.

[Hugh R]

Poor people, took what they saw as overdoses and woke up in the morning, so they got a good nights sleep, unlike the people they ripped off.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by Hugh R

Poor people, took what they saw as overdoses and woke up in the morning, so they got a good nights sleep, unlike the people they ripped off.

I don't think you can kill yourself with Ambien.

[LWJ]

I love that all the posters above despise these people!

Theft on such a grand scale spreads suffering on a large scale. These people are scum. Glad you all agree.

I think the death of Madoff's son is a tragedy and a fitting punishment for him. I feel bad for the son.

Larry

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

Those two should not be allowed to die. Simply so that they may be tortured daily. Payback by blood.

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

Originally Posted by red-beard

I don't think you can kill yourself with Ambien.

My sister's best friend died of an Ambien overdose.

[Bill Douglas]

Looking for sympathy.

Suicide is very easy. May I recommend a .45 to them.