From Ponzi Scheme to Property Sale: Bernie Madoff's Former Hamptons Home Fetches $14 Million!
The former Hamptons home of late disgraced financier Bernie Madoff has sold for $14 million, according to the local Multiple Listing Service, reported The Wall Street Journal.
The oceanfront estate in Montauk — which receives mentions in the recently released Netflix docuseries “Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street", which was seized by the U.S. Marshal’s Service shortly after Madoff was arrested on December 11, 2008, entered contract on Tuesday after spending four years on and off the market. The three-bedroom, roughly 3,000-square-foot home in Montauk has been on and off the market since 2018 when it was listed for $21 million. The asking price was later increased to $22.5 million. It was most recently asking $16.5 million with Bespoke Real Estate and Tim Davis of Corcoran.
The buyer couldn’t be identified.
The seller, Vornado Realty Trust chairman Steven Roth and his wife, producer Daryl Roth, purchased the property for $9.41 million in 2009, according to public records. The proceeds of the sale, which was handled by the U.S. Marshals Service, went toward restitution for the victims of Madoff’s notorious Ponzi scheme.
The Roths commissioned designer Thierry Despont to renovate the house around 2011, and they listed the property in 2018. The Roths, who have an additional home in the area, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment by The Wall Street Journal.
The house has an elegant staircase and a second-floor primary suite. The roughly 1.5-acre lot, which has a gunite pool by a deck, has about 180 feet of waterfront. Madoff, known for running one of the largest Ponzi schemes in American history, purchased the land for about $250,000 in the 1980s. The home was designed by the late architect Gene Futterman. Meanwhile, Madoff’s former Manhattan penthouse was recently taken off the market after failing to secure a buyer, The New York Post reported.
In 2008, federal prosecutors charged Madoff with running the largest Ponzi scheme in history, having used money from some investors to pay purported profits to other people. Madoff’s sons, Mark and Andrew, had informed authorities that he had confessed to them that his business was a complete fraud.
Madoff pleaded guilty in 2009 in Manhattan federal court to 11 felonies and was sentenced to 150 years in prison. His lawyer, Brandon Sample, and the Madoff Recovery Institute didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mark Madoff killed himself at age 46 in 2010, two years to the day of his father’s arrest. Andrew Madoff died four years after that of lymphoma at age 48.
While in prison in Butner, North Carolina, Madoff worked as an orderly first in a section of the lock-up dedicated to educational programs. He later asked to be moved to work in the chapel area, The City noted in its report.
