Madoff brother's mansion nets $3.5M for victims
NEW YORK — The five-bedroom, white stucco mansion in the opulent Old Westbury neighborhood roughly 25 miles east of Manhattan boasts a tennis court, an in-ground pool and four acres of property at the edge of a country club and golf course.
What it hasn't had in several years is a family whose members warmed up by the fireplace in the 400-square-foot living room, played billiards in the finished basement or entertained friends or relatives in the guest house.
The last owner who regularly used the residence, Peter Madoff, had to leave unexpectedly. He was implicated in the Ponzi scheme his now-notorious older brother, Bernard Madoff, used to steal as much as $20 billion from thousands of average investors, charities, celebrities and others.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Marshals Service announced the sale of the mansion for $3.5 million. Much of the proceeds will help reimburse the fraud victims through distributions from a victims compensation fund administered by the Department of Justice.
The financial outcome reflects a reduction from the $4.495 million asking price after Madoff forfeited the mansion and the home entered the Long Island real estate market in 2013.
Nonetheless, the money boosts the government restitution fund, which has collected an estimated $4 billion to date. A separate effort by the court trustee seeking Bernard Madoff's assets on behalf of burned victims currently stands at more than $10.5 billion.
"We will continue to take steps towards restitution for the victims," Eric Timberman, acting U.S. Marshal for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement issued Wednesday.
The mansion represented the last major piece of Peter Madoff's forfeited fortune. Federal marshals previously got $4.6 million from the sale of his primary residence, a two-bedroom Park Avenue apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side that he shared with his wife, Marion.
Bernard and Ruth Madoff's nearby Manhattan apartment fetched $8 million in a similar sale in 2010.
Peter Madoff wasn't around for the latest property closing. He pleaded guilty in June 2012 for his role in the fraud. Now 69, the younger Madoff brother is serving a 10-year prison term at a medium-security federal correctional institution in Estill, S.C.
Bernard Madoff, whose decades-long scheme collapsed in December 2008, pleaded guilty months later without standing trial. The 76-year-old scam architect is serving a 150-year term at a medium-security federal prison in Butner, N.C.