Creating $50 billion Ponzi schemes that go bust aren't as serious as they used to be, apparently. To be fair to the judge, he is asking that a the self-confessed Madoff writes up a list of "valuable portable items" so he doesn't try again to send them off to friends and family while leaving investors with pennies. I hope that he gets to keep the fluffy pillows in his penthouse apartment that requires $100 million in assets to be allowed in the building. Does losing $50 billion count?
A judge ruled Monday that Bernard Madoff would not be sent to jail pending trial, declining a request by prosecutors to revoke the bail of the financier accused in a $50 billion fraud case.
Madoff has been under house arrest, with electronic monitoring, since posting $10 million bail against his $7 million Manhattan apartment, where he lives with his wife, and against his wife's homes in Montauk, N.Y., and Palm Beach, Fla.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York added conditions to the bail, including "restrictions of transfer of all property whatsoever, wherever located" belonging to Madoff.
The judge also ruled that Madoff compile an inventory of all "valuable portable items" in his Manhattan home. The judge required that a security company check the inventory every two weeks and inspect outgoing mail.
