Ruth Madoff: The Loneliest Woman in New York

As for Mrs. Madoff, “she hasn’t said, ‘I had no idea,’ ” said Samantha von Sperling, a Manhattan social-image consultant. “All we see is her living in a world of stolen money. If I were her, I’d devote my life to charity — an orphanage or a pet shelter would be a good place to start.”

Alexandra Lebenthal, who is a friend of one of the Madoff sons, Andrew, as well as a fixture in Manhattan financial and social circles, said that Mrs. Madoff has not taken any steps that might rehabilitate her image. “In America, we love tearing people down and then bringing them back, but she hasn’t played the game,” she said.

Interviews in recent weeks with people close to Mrs. Madoff portray her as a woman-turned-outcast, anguished over the lack of contact with her children and grandchildren. Most people declined to speak for the record, citing the criminal investigation of her husband.

Ira Lee Sorkin, a lawyer who represents Mr. Madoff, said that his client’s wife “has great sympathy for the victims of her husband’s misconduct, and is deeply concerned about her husband’s physical and emotional condition.” But he added that “there is no question there’s an image problem.”

Two top lawyers who are former federal prosecutors and who represent some of the victims said Mrs. Madoff had invoked the legal doctrine of marital privilege and declined to testify against her husband.

Before the scandal, Mrs. Madoff radiated an understated sense of taste. She favored slim black pants, fine-gauge white cotton crew necks, Susan Bennis Warren Edwards crocodile-leather flats and classic gold jewelry, according to a friend of the family who saw her regularly at gatherings.

Now Mrs. Madoff spends her days largely confined to the two-story four-bedroom penthouse on 64th Street near Lexington Avenue, dressed in jeans and an Oxford-style shirt, according to someone who is in touch with her regularly. She often talks on the telephone to one of the few friends who has stuck by her, a high school classmate named Cynthia Lieberbaum. Mrs. Lieberbaum, who lives in Westport, Conn., with her husband, Michael, declined to comment.

These days Mrs. Madoff’s life is circumscribed by the federal prosecutors who are trying to unravel how her husband’s extensive fraud took place — and who else took part. She recently submitted to a voluntary freeze on all spending, except for essentials like food.

Her home in Palm Beach, Fla., has been surrendered to the authorities. Now she leaves her Upper East Side apartment mainly to visit her husband in jail, every couple of weeks (most recently in mid-May) or to buy food nearby or to visit her lawyer, Peter Chavkin, at his Midtown offices. Mr. Chavkin declined to comment and said that Mrs. Madoff would not comment, either.

Mrs. Madoff’s opportunities to redeem her image — for instance, through charity — appear limited. She was active with the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation, whose gala her husband was chairman of in 2006, the year that Roger, a nephew, died of leukemia. But the foundation lost at least $2 million in the Ponzi scheme; its executive director, Jay Feinberg, declined to comment.

The other charities she supported also seem to be distancing themselves.

Eating at the chic Manhattan restaurants she used to frequent is also out of the question. Marco Proietti, the general manager at Bella Blu, an Italian restaurant on Lexington near 70th Street, said she would likely be declared unwelcome. “People definitely think she knew what was going on,” he said. Plus, “one of our customers lost $10 million.”

Asked if she would accept Mrs. Madoff again as a client, Beth Eckhardt, who runs Amagansett Flowers by Beth on Long Island, said: “Are you kidding? No way! No way! No way! I mean, really.”

Oriente Mania, the general manager of Sette Mezzo, an Italian restaurant on Lexington near 70th Street, said he would open his doors to Mrs. Madoff only if she paid $160 due from a meal she and her husband had in December. While Mr. Madoff had written a check to cover the bill, prosecutors had blocked it from being cashed, he said.

She no longer goes to her gym, Equinox, one block south of her penthouse, where she paid $1,200 a month for a membership; representatives of the gym would not comment.

As for her salon, Pierre Michel, Mrs. Madoff had dropped in every six weeks over the last 10 years. One morning in March, she was told that she could no longer enjoy her routine of sitting with a glass of Poland Spring water while Giselle, a colorist often cited in Vogue and Allure, wielded the foils. Pierre Ouaknine, an owner of the salon, broke the news, according to Kelly Brady, a spokeswoman for the salon.

• Slideshow: Rogue's Gallery

The salon also refused to send a stylist to her apartment, a few blocks away, Ms. Brady said. Too many clients at the salon had been swindled, and the owners did not want their image further harmed, she explained.

Even in her exile, Mrs. Madoff’s world is rapidly getting smaller. Victims of the scheme are pushing the bankruptcy trustee and federal prosecutors to sell anything they can, including the couple’s penthouse, which was used to help secure Mr. Madoff’s bail; it could be seized after Mr. Madoff’s sentencing, which is scheduled for June 29.

The place is decorated with Greek- and Roman-type statuary and Impressionist-style paintings, said Michael Skakun, a journalist hired by Mrs. Madoff a few years ago to make a scrapbook for her husband’s 65th birthday (she canceled the project before he started it). “I felt like I’d walked into a consulate,” Mr. Skakun recalled.

For now — and from afar — Mrs. Boesky has a message for Mrs. Madoff. “If you are honest,” she said, “don’t let the world put you on a spit and turn you over.”

This story originally appeared in The New York Times

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