Madoff ’s wife called Greenwich home for nearly a decade

GREENWICH — As news spread of Bernie Madoff’s death Wednesday, the apartment and condo-complex where his wife had lived for years in Old Greenwich was quiet.

Madoff was serving a 150-year prison term at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, N.C., for what was believed to be the biggest Ponzi scheme in the history of Wall Street when he died at the age of 82.

A woman now living in Ruth Madoff’s former unit at Old Greenwich Gables said she had moved and declined further comment on Wednesday morning.

Another neighbor said Madoff had moved from the residence in late 2019. The neighbor, who did not give her name, said Madoff had lived quietly and often walked with a group of friends in the area.

But it was modest compared to the lavish lifestyle she had shared with her husband. The Madoffs had a Manhattan apartment, an $11 million estate in Palm Beach, Fla., a $4 million home on the tip of Long Island, another home in the south of France, private jets and a yacht.

It all came crashing down in 2008, when Bernie Madoff’s investment advisory business was exposed as a Ponzi scheme, shocking his many investors. The scheme wiped out people’s fortunes, ruined charities and left Madoff so hated he wore a bulletproof vest to court for protection. After pleading guilty to securities fraud and other charges, he was sentenced in June 2009 for defrauding some $64.8 billion from thousands of investors.

In 2012, Ruth Madoff moved to Old Greenwich to live with her son Andrew on Tomac Avenue and be close to her three grandchildren, who lived nearby. Andrew Madoff died of cancer in 2014. Her other son, Mark, died by suicide in 2010.

Ruth Madoff, 79, kept a low profile around town, residents in the area told Greenwich Time back in 2017 following the debut of an HBO film centered on her husband’s crimes called “The Wizard of Lies.” She was played by Michelle Pfeiffer in the production. The film depicts her as unaware of her husband’s financial schemes: “All these questions ... I don't have any answers,” she exclaims at one point in the drama.

Back in Old Greenwich, Ruth Madoff was known to frequent Sound Beach Avenue for a bagel most mornings, running errands in her Toyota Prius.

“If you didn’t know who she was, you wouldn’t think she was anyone. She tries not to stand out,” Cliff Ng, who runs a dry cleaning business off Sound Beach Avenue, told Greenwich Time in 2017.

In a statement Ruth Madoff released during her husband’s legal proceedings, she said she had been unaware of his illicit dealings. But as part of her husband’s sentencing, the government stripped her of all but about $2 million of the $70 million that was in her name.

The condo complex in the west end of Greenwich where she lived is a comfortable and fairly affluent housing enclave, with attached units clad in brick and shingle. Condo units sell in the $500,000 range and up, according to records at Town Hall. Ruth Madoff was not the named owner of the unit where she had lived.

Ruth Madoff grew up in Queens, N.Y., and met her future husband at Far Rockaway High School.

Bernie Madoff’s lawyers tried to get a court to release their client last year during the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, citing Madoff’s end-stage renal disease and other chronic medical conditions. It was denied.