Madoff's 'Deluxe apartment in the sky'

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Madoff's 'Deluxe apartment in the sky'
Ordinary folks playing by the rules and investing frugally find it galling to watch their assets melt away while Bernie Madoff sucks down booze and caviar in his $7 million penthouse.

Chipped beef on toast in the mess hall at Rikers Island would be a better choice for this pampered symbol of greed and hubris.

In the midst of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, Madoff periodically bobs back up into public awareness as his lavish life continues.

OK, we made up the part about swilling liquor and nibbling Beluga caviar, but it's true Madoff is under perhaps the most luxurious house arrest in U.S. history.

He is back in the news, along with his wife, Ruth, who also was, it is important to note, his bookkeeper.

Madoff is accused by the U.S. government of the biggest financial fraud ever, $50 billion by his own estimate.

We've written about his gaudy home imprisonment before, but now his wife is beginning to stir public interest too.

Madoff himself is claiming that his wife owns the Manhattan penthouse and an additional $62 million in assets. These should be beyond the reach of any cheated investors, Madoff says, because they are in Ruth Madoff's name and unconnected to any alleged fraud.

Stephen A. Weiss, a lawyer who represents about 100 investors, including one with more than $100 million in assets, told The Associated Press that investors won't stand for the Madoffs keeping millions of dollars.

"Bernie Madoff has no shortage of chutzpah to suggest as he does that his wife was not the beneficiary of his fraud. It is not only senseless, but offensive," Weiss told the AP.

"Moreover, it's been widely reported that she served as his bookkeeper for a number of years. If true, not only is she civilly culpable, but criminally as well," Weiss said.

Ruth Madoff has not been charged in the case.

Sometimes we wonder if Bernie has been charged, either.

The feds give the laughable explanation that they think Madoff will be more cooperative if he is in his usual surroundings.

So far as we know, his cooperation so far has been limited to transferring huge amounts of ill-gotten cash and jewels to his wife and a few favored friends, with some of those transactions taking place almost up to the zero hour of his arrest.

Although the case and the circumstances differ, Americans might be forgiven for making comparisons to the outcome of the Enron scandal.

The federal handling of the biggest catch in that empire of corruption was as questionable as Madoff's coddling. The principals in that case, too, wandered loose for years as trial preparations crept forward.

That particularly applied to Ken Lay, the director, who was found guilty at trial and died two months later.

His widow, Linda, was able to claim that she was entitled to the fortune still in her husband's control at his death because he had filed an appeal.

She also received $900,000 in annuities her husband had bought with the pirated funds of Enron's investors. (Enron's nonexecutive employees were ruined as their pension funds simply evaporated.)

Madoff and Ruth, Lay and Linda, they're quite the examples of rampant greed.

And models for a privileged class that has complete disregard for the welfare -- or even the opinions -- of those whom they have wronged.