Mrs Madoff, the charity worker - wife of £45bn Ponzi scheme fraudster hands out meals to Florida homeless

By Mail Foreign Service
Updated: 11:36 EST, 18 July 2010

Bernie and Ruth Madoff

High times: Bernie and Ruth Madoff in 2008, when they owned an £16m waterfront mansion in Florida

The wife of crooked financier Bernie Madoff is working as a 'meals of wheels' driver.

Ruth Madoff has been helping a charity delivering meals to the elderly and housebound in Florida.

Friends say she has chosen the charity work as a form of redemption for the sins of her billionaire husband.

Madoff is serving a life sentence after being found guilty in June 2009 of stealing more than £45bn in an elaborate Ponzi scheme.

The 72-year-old former Wall St. genius was forced to sell his Manhattan and Florida homes as US authorities seized all his assets.

His 67-year-old wife stays at her sister's modest home in Boca Raton, Florida, while carrying out the charity work.

According to the New York Post Mrs Madoff drives a 14-year-old car for her delivery rounds.

A sign reading 'homebound delivery volunteer driver' is placed in the rear of the car.

Mrs Madoff is said to divide her time between New York and Florida, where she once lived in a £16m Palm Beach mansion.

But having been forced to sell the oceanfront estate she now stays at her sister's £200,000 home in a gated community.

The newspaper also claimed that she often uses her maiden name of Alpern so she is not recognised as the wife of the world's biggest swindler.

Mrs Madoff, who has dyed her hair red in an attempt to take on a new identity, has denied any knowledge of her husband's fraud scheme.

Ruth Alpern Madoff

Public transport: The trappings of wealth now gone, Mrs Madoff was spotted last year on New York's Subway

In a written statement on the day of her husband's sentencing, she said, 'to say that I feel devastated for the many whom my husband has destroyed is truly inadequate'.

Madoff has been told he will die in prison with no chance of release from his 150-year sentence.

As the architect of the world's biggest fraud he swindled thousands of people out of their life savings.

Actor Kevin Bacon and director Steven Spielberg were among those who lost money from investing with Madoff.

Inmates at the North Carolina prison where Madoff is serving his sentence claims that he has showed no remorse for his victims.

He is said to have said:'F*** my victims, I carried them for 20 years.' 

Madoff was also reported to have funnelled more than £5bn with friends before being jailed.

Three people, who have not been named, are said to have hidden the money in secret accounts now being sought by officials.

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