Inside Ruth Madoff Personal Life: Her Marriage and Children

Comprehensive coverage of Inside Ruth Madoff Personal Life: Her Marriage and Children, offering readers critical context.

Ruth Madoff married Bernie Madoff on November 28, 1959, at the age of 18. They met while attend ing Far Rockaway High School. He was three years older than Ruth.

She previously worked as her husband’s bookkeeper. According to a Vanity Fair piece, colleagues in the London office said “Ruthie runs all the books” when she was a bookkeeper. She was a director at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities.

Ruth stated in an interview that she and her husband were so upset after his financial fraud was exposed that they attempted suicide together, taking “a bunch of pills” (Ambien and possibly Klonopin) in a suicide pact on Christmas Eve 2008, shortly after her husband was arrested by federal authorities. However, they awoke the next day.

When Ruth Madoff’s husband was convicted in 2009, victim Marcia FitzMaurice wrote in court: “Your wife, rightfully so, has been vilified and shunned by her friends in the community.” Ruth Madoff dyed her hair red to prevent public recognition when her husband was imprisoned.

They had two sons: Mark (1964-2010), a 1986 University of Michigan graduate, and Andrew (1966-2014), a 1988 Wharton School graduate. Both of her boys died before her: Mark by suicide in 2010 and Andrew from cancer in 2014. On December 11, 2010, exactly two years after his father’s incarceration, Mark was discovered dead in his New York City apartment. The city medical examiner ruled that the cause of death was suicide by hanging.