Bernie Madoff’s Property Auctioned Off
Turns out people want to walk in Bernie Madoff’s shoes.
Footwear to furniture to underwear, almost 500 lots of it seized from two of the fraudster’s homes, drew feverish bidding at a hotel in Midtown Manhattan yesterday. The auction lasted more than nine hours and grossed more than $2 million, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, which oversaw it. The dearest item was a 10.5-carat diamond ring which sold for $550,000, beating its high presale estimate by $200,000.
Competing were collectors seeking mementos from the $65 billion Ponzi scheme, dealers and others who were as mysterious as Madoff himself before he was arrested in December 2008.
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A Conversation Piece
“It’s like owning Hitler’s stuff,” he said. “He wasn’t a good guy.”
The emerald-cut stone was estimated to sell for as much as $350,000. The staccato-tongued auctioneer Bob Sheehan, of closely held Gaston & Sheehan, said the ring “supposedly” was Ruth’s engagement ring.
Madoff’s Steinway & Sons grand piano went for $42,000.
“It’s got a little bit of history to it, and it’s hysterical,” real estate developer John Rodger of East Islip on Long Island told a scrum of a couple dozen reporters after placing the winning bid. “It makes it a conversation piece.”
All items were sold without commissions.
As of Sept. 30, approximately $1.5 billion has been recovered for Madoff’s investors, the trustee overseeing Madoff’s bankruptcy, Irving Picard, said in a report.
At the time of his arrest, Madoff’s account statements reflected 4,900 accounts with $65 billion in nonexistent investments, according to Picard. Investors lost about $20 billion in principal.
Bloomberg
