Moneybox: The Eternal Teenage Life of Ruth Madoff

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Moneybox The Eternal Teenage Life of Ruth Madoff Maybe she really didn't know about her husband's Ponzi scheme. By Jessica Grose Posted Wednesday, Nov 02, 2011, at 06:15 PM ET After three years of near total silence since her husband, Bernard Madoff, admitted to running a Ponzi scheme that devastated thousands, Ruth Madoff has embarked on a nationwide sympathy tour. In the past week, she hit 60 Minutes and The Today Show, and gave an interview with the New York Times, all to support the new biography Truth and Consequences: Life Inside the Madoff Family. The overly sympathetic book was written by Laurie Sandell, who wrote about her own sociopathic father in the graphic memoir The Impostor's Daughter. Truth and Consequences relies heavily on interviews with Ruth and her surviving son, Andrew. (Tragically, her other son, Mark, committed suicide late last year.) As Josh Voorhees points out on the Slatest, Ruth repeats the same details in each interview: Ruth and Bernie tried to commit suicide while he was under house arrest; Ruth's reaction to her husband's admission of enormous financial fraud was, "What's a Ponzi scheme?"; Ruth had no idea that her husband was bilking his investors for all they were worth. It is this last point that remains contentious. A look in the comments section of any press coverage of Ruth Madoff shows that lots of people still think she's lying about what she knows (sample from that New York Times article: "What a bunch of lies. Anyone in the industry knows that the returns had to be made up. ... [T]he sons knew it, the wife knew it, everyone knew it"). Despite the ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate The Three Reasons Republicans Are Fervently Defending Herman Cain Bank of America Learns It Must Be More Subtle About Screwing Its Customers Ruth Madoff's Nationwide Sympathy Tour: Does Anyone Feel Bad for Her?	Advertisement
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