Dead swindler’s wife gave money back

Iwonder how Bernie Madoff is getting along in prison. He has only 141 more years to serve. You remember Bernie. He masterminded the biggest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world. He’s housed in medium security at the Butner Federal Corrections Facility in North Carolina. Know who else is there?

Congressman Jessie Jackson Jr., convicted of stealing $750,000 of campaign money which he used for entertainment, travel and home renovations; Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, convicted in the World Trade Center bombings and Mel Reynolds, a big Wall Street tycoon serving time on bank fraud and child pornography charges.

Know who used to be there? Evangelist Jim Bakker, gangsters Carmine Persio and Anthony Gratiano and John Hinkley, who tried to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

Now, for the good news: The fellow who made the most money from Madoff’s scheme except, of course, for Madoff himself, was a man named Jeffrey Pickower.

Pickower pocketed over $7 billion in the final months of the fraud.

But — and here comes the good part — before he could spend any of it, he drowned in the swimming pool of his beachfront mansion in Florida.

I am happy to report that, following his death, his wife gave the $7 billion back to the swindled investors.

That’s about one third of the total that Madoff made off with.

I’m Fred Trainor and that’s a Little Good News.