Madoff with the Money (23 page)

Primex never succeeded.

Jennifer and Roger had married on August 30, 2001, in a big and flashy affair in the atrium of the old Bowery Savings Bank on 42nd Street. They were on their honeymoon in South Africa when 9/11 happened, and their apartment was just a mile north of Ground Zero where the World Trade Center towers had once stood. The two had been introduced some years earlier by her roommates at Cornell University, who had been his friends growing up, and at the time they met he was a student at Duke University.

Roger got leukemia when he was 29, when they had been married only three years.

Still heartbroken by her husband's death, and furious about the ramifications of Bernie's crimes—a promised grant from the Madoff family in her late husband's name to help emerging writers in Queens was never given—Jennifer Madoff was devastated, but defensive of everyone in the Madoff family except, of course, Bernie.

In an interview lasting more than 20 minutes, she never once uttered Bernie's name, clearly viewing her late husband's uncle as a pariah.

Late in February 2008, after Bernie's arrest but before his shocking guilty plea and other revelations about the scheme and the Madoff family, she said to the author:

Jennifer says “it goes without question” that Bernie's crimes had caused a major breach with his brother, Peter. “He's just shocked and devastated by all of it.”

Her honesty and concern for both the legacy of her husband and her family were sincere, and the hurt could be heard in her voice. Had at that point the public heard something similar from Ruth, Peter Madoff, or Bernie's sons, the perception of them, even by many victims, might have been different. But there would be no expressions of contrition, no words of sadness for all those who had been hurt or even for their own feelings from Ruth until much later. All were listening to their lawyers' advice, which surely was: don't say a word.

In the very early years of the new millennium—when Bernie's Ponzi scheme was going full tilt—cancer was frighteningly ravaging the Madoff clan. Within a time frame of just six months, three closely related family members were diagnosed with blood cancers. As Roger Madoff was going through the hellish and ultimately unsuccessful treatments for his leukemia, his cousin, 38-year-old Andy, Bernie's son, then the head of the trading desk at Madoff and the father of two, was diagnosed in March 2003 with a rare form of lymphoma after a lump was discovered in the crook of his neck. Another cousin, 9-year-old Ariel, the daughter of Madoff executive Charles Wiener, Bernie's sister's son, had also been diagnosed with leukemia, and Peter Madoff had previously had a couple of bouts with cancer that were said to have entailed surgery.

“My family's luck of late made me wary,” Roger stated in his book.

A very dark cloud had settled over the family, and a still darker one was yet to come.

With cancer striking family members, the Madoff family started a foundation to fund leukemia and lymphoma research and treatment.

“Using resources from the family's trading and investment business,” Roger Madoff disclosed in his book, “the fund ballooned in size to well over eight figures. To me, the sum was enormous. Not being closely involved in the trading operations, I hadn't realized the extent of the wealth that existed there.... In less than a year, the Madoff family became the largest benefactor for leukemia and lymphoma research in the U.S., and probably the world. We didn't make public pronouncements about our charity. Different members of the family had different reasons for keeping quiet. For me, the fact that three family members were suffering acutely from blood cancers seemed reason enough not to crow about research funding.”

Roger never explained the reasons for remaining mum. Was it possible that Bernie didn't want it revealed because of the impact it might have had on his firm? Or was it simply that people prefer to keep cancer a secret when it strikes? Even today it's sometimes still described in obituaries as “a long illness.”

One also has to wonder whether any or all of that eight-figure endowment came from money stolen from the accounts of Bernie's money-management investors. And was the Madoff family's donation kept secret in order to not scare away investors in Bernie's very exclusive fund with the specter of cancer looming over the family?

A few weeks after Roger Madoff died, Ruth was chairperson for the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation's sixth annual Partners for Life gala at New York's Grand Hyatt Hotel, which was hosted by the Tony Award-winning actor Ron Rifkin. A photograph in the organization's magazine showed Bernie and Ruth, benevolently smiling.

Jennifer Madoff, a strong and self-confident young woman, emphasized in her interview with the author that the public and the media, and even the thousands of Ponzi victims, don't personally know the Madoff family members, and she considers that a shame. Specifically she mentions “my father-in-law and his kindness, and his generosity, and his wonderful loving nature. If they don't know everyone personally, they just associate it with how awful this all is.”

For instance, she's very defensive of her sister-in-law—Roger's sister, Shana Madoff Skoller Swanson—who tried to save her brother's life by being the donor for a stem cell transplant. “We're very close,” asserts Jennifer. “I'm the godmother of her daughter [Rebecca]. She and Roger were very close, so I feel very protective of her.” Jennifer says she was particularly upset “and kind of repulsed” by the
New York
magazine cover story on Bernie that went into details about Shana's private life and her second marriage—to Eric Swanson, a former lawyer at the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Unfortunately, their loving, wonderful relationship is being dragged through this for no reason whatsoever.”

However, her late husband in his memoir—published posthumously by Jennifer herself—also revealed some very embarrassing details about his sister's private life, details more appropriate for a tell-all, but he had his reasons.

He wrote:

Roger quoted Shana as telling his wife, “I know you think I'm reckless. But I would never do anything to put Roger in jeopardy.”

He then revealed that after Shana had taken two routine blood tests to make sure she was a “perfect match” for the stem cell procedure, a major problem was found. She came into her brother's hospital room and, laughing nervously, declared, “Well, I'm pregnant! I guess it happened last weekend. They said it just barely showed up on the test.”

Peter and Marion Madoff were in the hospital room and were shocked by her announcement, while Roger “was floored, speechless.”

Shana then told her brother that it was probable that the much-needed stem cell harvest would damage the fetus.

He disclosed that Shana attempted to abort the pregnancy by taking a morning-after pill; the first time it failed, but the second time she took the pill it worked.

“The immediate crises,” he said, “passed, but indefinable feelings of hurt lingered on both sides.”

At the Gift of Life gala of which Ruth was chairperson, Shana spoke “proudly” about donating blood stem cells to her brother, “and talked lovingly of his courageous battle and kind spirit.” She told the wealthy gathering, “Roger lost his fight, but the memory of the passion and promise with which he lived will always be with us.”

Naturally, there was nothing said about the scandalous situation that her brother had revealed in his memoir.

Among those listening in the audience were a number of future Madoff victims such as Fred Wilpon, the hugely wealthy real estate investor and owner of the New York Mets baseball team, who had turned over hundreds of millions of dollars to his longtime friend Bernie to invest over the years.

Prior to Bernie's confession and incarceration, Jennifer Madoff notes that “everybody in the family was close, everybody worked together, so many of the cousins worked together. They had a nice, close relationship. It was a big, happy family. Now everyone is crestfallen—that's the best way to describe it. Everyone is just reeling. In the wake of this, they're all trying to understand it themselves—it's devastating, like an earthquake. You don't know that it's coming and it just turns your world upside down. As the news comes out, everybody in the family feels crushed.”

She adds sadly, “I hate the idea that my late husband's name and his legacy would be associated with this
horror
.”

The Madoff family, in particular Roger's parents and Bernie and Ruth, had pledged to fund the Roger Madoff Literary Fellowship sponsored by the Queens Council on the Arts. Compared to the billions lost by investors, and the promised Madoff funding for education and research that was lost, the $10,000 fellowship was minuscule, but it had enormous meaning for those involved.

The council's director, Hoong-Yee Lee Krakauer, says:

Everything was in place on December 4, 2008, when the deadlines for entries had closed. Panelists had been chosen for judging; a Queens public access cable TV program about the fellowship had been taped with Jennifer Madoff and was ready for airing, and publicity was being generated.

Then, on December 10, the eve of Bernie's arrest, the night of the Madoff Christmas party, Krakauer, who was overseeing the program in conjunction with Jennifer, received a telephone call from one of the panelists who was in the literary-film business and a good friend of the Madoffs. She says the caller told her,“ ‘Tomorrow in the news Bernie Madoff is going to make an announcement that his entire business is bankrupt.' Ponzi scheme wasn't mentioned, but that [Madoff] was a house of cards, or something to that effect. I said, ‘You're joking. There's no way,' because they said, ‘Whatever you're doing with the Roger Madoff fellowship—it should come off your web site. You should notify everybody. It's not going to happen.' I said,‘That's just
crazy
.'”