The sister of Bernie Madoff, the infamous Ponzi schemer who died in prison last year, and her husband were found dead in their Florida home Thursday. Police say the cause of their death seems to be an apparent murder-suicide.
On Sunday, The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said officers arrived in Boynton Beach about 1 p.m. on Thursday after receiving a report that “a male and female were unresponsive inside their residence.”
Police found an elderly couple with gunshot wounds, and detectives said signs pointed to a murder-suicide, the statement added.
The sheriff’s office named Sondra Wiener, 87, as one of the deceased. The man was not named because his family chose to invoke a law that guarantees the right to privacy of crime victims. But in a tweet the sheriff’s office named Marvin, 90, Sondra Wiener’s husband.
The police said the medical examiner’s office will make an official determination of their cause of death.
In 2009, Sondra Wiener’s son, David, told the New York Post that Madoff, the disgraced financier who masterminded what was perhaps the largest Ponzi scheme in history, defrauded his sister, as well.
David said “My family’s a victim. More so than anybody else. It’s very painful.”
It was reported that “Madoff, who died in prison in April, nearly 12 years into a 150-year sentence for money laundering, securities fraud and other charges, stole at least $20 billion of principal investments over some two decades from his investors, including Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and filmmaker Steven Spielberg. Bernard Madoff, mastermind of vast Wall Street Ponzi scheme, dies at 82.”
In 2020, when Madoff was battling health conditions and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons judged he had less than two years left to live, he asked for but was denied compassionate release.
Madoff expressed remorse for the crimes he committed during phone interviews with The Washington Post.
Madoff’s son Mark hung himself on the second anniversary of his father’s arrest. Mark was the fourth person connected to the financier who died by suicide.
Madoff’s wife, Ruth, claimed that her and her husband tried to kill themselves on Christmas Eve in 2008 by taking “a bunch of pills.”
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1800-273-TALK (8255), text “help” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go to suicidepreventionlifeline.org.
Read More about Madoff here: Ponzi scheme king Bernie Madoff, who bilked investors out of billions, seeks medical release from prison.
This article was originally sourced by www.msn.com.
