Bernard L. Madoff mailed Cartier and Tiffany watches, an emerald ring and a diamond necklace worth a total of at least $1 million to relatives and friends in violation of a court order, and should be immediately jailed because he is a flight risk, prosecutors said in court papers released Wednesday.
Federal prosecutors asked a judge in a court hearing Monday to revoke Madoff’s $10-million bail, saying his continued release “presents a clear risk of further obstruction of justice.”
The letter from Assistant U.S. Attorney Marc Litt contains further details about the gifts Madoff mailed to friends and relatives in separate packages which prosecutors say violated Madoff’s bail conditions. One parcel contained 13 watches, a diamond necklace, an emerald ring, and two sets of cufflinks, the collective value of which may exceed $1 million, Litt wrote.
“Two other packages — containing a diamond bracelet, a gold watch, a diamond Cartier watch, a diamond Tiffany watch, four diamond brooches, a jade necklace, and other assorted jewelry, also were sent to relatives,” Litt said in the letter, adding that prosecutors had recovered those items. Two other packages were mailed by Madoff or his wife to Madoff’s brother Peter and an unidentified couple in Florida, he said.
Madoff, who is under house arrest at his $7 million Upper East Side penthouse, has not yet formally responded to the charge against him in court.
His defense attorney Ira Sorkin has said the transfer of jewelry was an innocent mistake, and that Madoff and his wife are in the process of retrieving the items from his sons, other relatives, and acquaintances.
Sorkin also said Ruth Madoff may have transferred some items she owned before her Dec. 26 agreement with the government not to do so.
Madoff, 70, was arrested last month and charged with what authorities say was an investment scam that bilked clients of as much as $50 billion. He faces as much as 20 years in prison and a $5 million fine if convicted.
Madoff’s sons, Mark and Andrew Madoff, had alerted prosecutors last week that they had received jewelry in the mail. Their lawyer has said they contacted authorities about their father’s confession about running an alleged Ponzi scheme.
The magistrate judge, Ronald L. Ellis of United States District Court in Manhattan, is expected to rule, possibly later today, on whether Madoff should stay under house arrest, or be sent to jail.
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