Try walking a day in Madoff’s shoes

Oct 19 2010

Try walking a day in Madoff’s shoes – literally

Tags: Shoes, Shoes Literally | No Comments »

If you’ve ever wondered what it is like to be in Bernie Madoff’s shoes, you can soon find out without having to spend eternity behind bars.U.S. Marshals are set to auction off more than 400 items that belonged the notorious Ponzi king – including a nifty pair of monogrammed velvet slippers.The size 8 1/2 black house shoes with red quilted lining come complete with “BLM” embroidered on them in gold thread.The Nov. 13 sale will also include a 1917 Steinway grand piano, an eye-popping 10 1/2 carat diamond ring, Madoff’s desk and a bronze paperweight in the shape of a bull. “These pieces are the last of what once occupied the homes and lives of Bernard and Ruth Madoff’s residences in New York and Montauk, N.Y.,” said Joseph Guccione, US Marshal for the Southern District of New York. Expected prices were not revealed.A public preview of the items will be held Nov. 12 at Surroundart in Brooklyn, but they will also be viewable that day at www.txauction.com and www.usmarshals.gov/madoff.The sale comes shortly after officials finally found a buyer for Madoff’s 8,800-square-foot Palm Beach, Fla. home – which sold for $5.65 million after more than a year on the market. The initial asking price had been $8.49 million.

The house was the last of three Madoff homes that the U.S. government sold to compensate the victim’s of his $65 billion fraud.

Madoff’s beach house in Montauk sold quickly for more than the $8.75 million asking price in September 2009, while his his posh Upper East Side duplex apartment went for $8.9 million in February.The November auction is the second round of Madoff’s personal effects to hit the auction block. A trove of about 200 items took in over $1 million last year.The 72-year-old Madoff is serving a 150-year sentence at a federal prison in North Carolina.

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