Never charged, Bernie Madoff’s son leaves more than $15M

Andrew Madoff, the son of convicted Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff, left more than $15 million in property to his children, wife and fiancee in his will following his death from lymphoma this month.

Andrew Madoff listed $11 million in personal property and $4.5 million in improved real property in his will, which was filed on Wednesday with Surrogate’s Court in Manhattan and made public on Thursday.

Mr. Madoff left all of his tangible personal property to his daughters, Emily and Anne, and one-third of his estate to his estranged wife, Deborah West, according to the will. The rest goes to his fiancee, Catherine Hooper. Ruth Madoff, his mother, isn’t listed as a beneficiary.

(Related: Bernie Madoff’s last surviving son Andrew dies at 48)

Andrew Madoff died Sept. 2 at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York after battling mantle cell lymphoma, his attorney, Martin Flumenbaum, said in a statement. Mr. Flumenbaum didn’t immediately return a voice-mail message left at his office after regular business hours seeking comment on the will.

As heads of the trading desk at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, Mr. Madoff and his older brother, Mark, led the market-making business of the once-respected firm while their father, based on another floor, handled client investments.

FALSIFIED STATEMENTS

The firm’s clients invested $17.5 billion in principal and were led to believe, through falsified statements and trade confirmations, that they had a total of $64.8 billion in their accounts. Irving Picard, the trustee appointed to collect money for victims of the fraud, had recovered $9.8 billion as of July to partially reimburse clients who lost money.

On Dec. 10, 2008, the brothers contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation to expose their father’s long-running fraud. The brothers called the FBI, they said, only hours after first learning of the fraud from their father, who confessed to them because his investment-management business was being inundated with redemption orders he couldn’t fill.

Bernard Madoff is serving a 150-year term in federal prison in North Carolina.

Though sued for millions of dollars, the brothers were never charged with complicity in the fraud, or with any other wrongdoing, although they never shed public suspicions that they were involved in their father’s scheme.

Mark Madoff committed suicide on Dec. 11, 2010, the second anniversary of his father’s arrest.

Andrew Madoff, in April 2013, disclosed the recurrence of his mantle cell lymphoma, a form of cancer for which he had been treated in 2003. He underwent a stem-cell transplant in May 2013, following chemotherapy and radiation.

Mr. Picard sought $73.8 million in repayment from Andrew Madoff, part of $255.3 million he targeted from Madoff family members who, he said, used money from the firm to “fund personal business ventures and personal expenses such as homes, cars and boats.”