Official: Wife Pulled $15M Before Madoff's Arrest

BOSTON (AP) — The wife of disgraced money manager Bernard Madoff withdrew more than $15 million from a firm co-owned by her husband - including $10 million on the day before his arrest on charges he ran a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, the top security regulator in Massachusetts said Wednesday.

Secretary of State William Galvin said Ruth Madoff, 67, withdrew $5.5 million on Nov. 25 and $10 million on Dec. 10 from Cohmad Securities Corp., a New York firm co-owned by her husband.

The secretary cited reports produced by Cohmad as proof of the withdrawals.

A telephone number listed to Ruth Madoff in Palm Beach, Fla., rang busy and a number in New York had been disconnected. Messages left for the Madoffs' attorney were not immediately returned. A Cohmad spokeswoman in New York said the company had no comment.

In New York, meanwhile, the government and lawyers for Madoff agreed to a 30-day delay in the Wednesday deadline for obtaining a grand jury indictment against the money manager.

The new deadline is March 13.

Since Madoff's arrest Dec. 11, investigators have been assessing the financial damage inflicted on thousands of people who lost money investing with Madoff.

The victims identified so far have included ordinary people and Hollywood celebrities, along with large hedge funds, international banks and charities in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

Madoff was arrested after investigators said he confessed to his sons that he had swindled investors of a mammoth Ponzi scheme - early investors are paid with money raised from new investors.

The 70-year-old former Nasdaq stock market chairman remains confined to his Manhattan penthouse under house arrest.

Galvin made his disclosure in a complaint asking Massachusetts state regulators to stop Cohmad from doing business in Massachusetts because it failed to provide information to Galvin about its relationship with Madoff. Galvin said Cohmad officials have ignored subpoenas or given incomplete responses as part of the state's probe of how Massachusetts investors lost money in the Madoff scheme.

An associate of Madoff, Robert Jaffe, appeared last week before officers of the Massachusetts Security Division, but officials declined to say what Jaffe discussed. Galvin has described Jaffe as a registered agent and principal of Cohmad, which is in the same New York City building as Madoff's firm.

Jaffe's lawyers have said he had no knowledge of Madoff's actions and was himself a victim who lost millions of dollars.

Galvin said the discovery of Ruth Madoff's withdrawals raises questions about whether there was a broader conspiracy behind Bernard Madoff's actions. Madoff has projected himself as someone who acted alone.

"As you know, the tale is being told that it was just Mr. Madoff who apparently worked 24 hours a day, shooting out false invoices and statements to people," Galvin told The Associated Press in an interview.

"It would seem as if some of the facts that we've discovered would raise, at least, some questions on that. I certainly am not questioning the thoroughness of my colleagues in other jurisdictions, but I think our findings, which we're sharing with them, would hopefully spur them on to be very thorough in looking over all the parties involved here and not to accept facile explanations about how this happened," Galvin added.

He also cited a $526,000 Cohmad payment to a woman he said was associated with Madoff - but not licensed in Massachusetts or ever a Cohmad employee - as more potential evidence of a conspiracy.

"It suggests to us that this is one big entity," Galvin said.