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Madoff's wife withdrew $15m from account days before his arrest

This article is more than 15 years old

The wife of the renegade financier Bernard Madoff withdrew $15.5m (£10.8m) from an account at a Madoff-linked brokerage firm in the days running up to her husband's arrest, it emerged tonight.

Court documents filed by financial regulators in Massachusetts prompt fresh questions about the actions of Ruth Madoff, an occasional author who once co-wrote a kosher cookery book, Great Chefs of America Cook Kosher.

According to records of wire transfers obtained by Massachusetts' secretary of state, Mrs Madoff withdrew the money from Cohmad Securities, a firm co-owned by her husband which shared premises and had close commercial ties with Madoff Securities.

The transfers show that she took out $5.5m on 25 November followed by $10m on 10 December – the day her husband turned himself in to the authorities and allegedly confessed to fiddling investors out of $50bn.

Massachusetts' secretary of state, William Galvin, described Cohmad and Madoff Securities as "so intertwined that they could be viewed as a common enterprise".

Clients have said that Cohmad acted as little more than a go-between, channelling their money into Madoff's core investment empire. Galvin is trying to revoke Cohmad's securities licence and has accused the firm of refusing to co-operate with an investigation into its finances.

Since his arrest, Madoff has been under court-imposed home confinement in his penthouse apartment on Manhattan's upper east side. For occasional court appearances, he has worn a bullet-proof vest, reflecting concern about threats to his safety.

The US authorities say Madoff has admitted to operating one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in history in which money from new clients was used to pay funds owing to existing customers.

Victims include Hollywood names such as Kevin Bacon and Steven Spielberg plus scores of charities, banks, hedge funds and organisations linked to the Jewish community in the US. One victim, French financier Thierry de la Villehuchet, took his own life in late December.

Madoff recently survived a skirmish over his bail conditions following complaints by prosecutors that he had breached a freeze on his assets by mailing $1m worth of watches and jewellery to family members.

Prosecutors today today obtained a 30-day extension of a deadline to indict Madoff. The extension allows prosecutors to hold co-operation talks with Madoff's lawyers.

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