Back in October, Irving Picard, the trustee in charge of recovering money for Bernard Madoff’s victims, slapped a lawsuit on Bernie’s two sons, his niece and his brother, saying they used the business like a “family piggy bank” and siphoned off $198 million to spend on themselves. Now the four have agreed to an asset freeze until there’s an outcome to Picard’s suit. Examples of the outlandish expenses paid for by the company are $813,287 for Andrew Madoff’s Amex “bill for clothes, boat rentals and vacations,” and Shana Madoff Swanson’s $379,342 for “clothes, makeup and travel.” Per the agreement, they must all now get Picard’s permission to “run up a debt of more than $1,000, excluding legal fees, medical expenses, taxes and ‘reasonable living expenses.’” Sounds like that last part might cause some problems though; their definition of “reasonable living expenses” is probably not very reasonable at all.
Bernie Madoff’s family, including sons Andrew and Mark, ordered to publicly disclose spending [NYDN]
