Mark Madoff was first married to his first wife/ex-wife Susan Elkin, however, they got divorced in 2000. Later, he got married to his second wife, Stephanie Mack. Additionally, Stephanie and Mark agreed that she should change her last name, and they came up with Mack by combining the letters M from Madoff with ACK, the airport code for their beloved Nantucket.
We get a true insight into the infamous rise and fall of fraudster financier Bernard “Bernie” Madoff thanks to Netflix‘s Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street, which lives up to its title in every way imaginable. Bernie Madoff’s $20 billion Ponzi scheme was such a violent crime that it affected thousands of victims. In some cases, investors lost their life savings, their homes, and even their lives.
Madoff’s own family was also shattered the moment he revealed his crime. Given that he actively ran one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history for almost five decades, it is only appropriate that his sons approached the authorities as soon as they discovered the truth.
Bernie’s wife Ruth Madoff was left perplexed, ostensibly unaware of what Bernie had been up to all those years. His sons, who turned him into the FBI on the same day he confessed to them, both died in their 40s: Mark Madoff by suicide and Andrew Madoff by a rare form of blood cancer. Each son also left an ex-wife and a current partner behind. Now, if you’d like to learn more about Bernie’s elder son, Mark Madoff’s wife, we’ve got the information for you.
Previously, we touched on Jeffry Picower and Carl Shapiro.
Mark Madoff’s Wife: Both Mark’s Ex-wives, Susan Elkin & Stephanie Mack, Were Sued for a Combined Total of $29.9 Million!
Irving H. Picard, the trustee charged with recouping money for Bernie’s victims, named all three of Bernard Madoff‘s sons’ ex-wives, among others, in a $255.3 million dollar lawsuit that claimed the women should have been aware of and reported Madoff’s fraud, according to the Los Angeles Times. Mark Madoff’s ex-wife, Susan Elkin, was sued for $2.4 million, and his second wife, Stephanie Mack, was sued for $27.5 million.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that both of Mark’s wives had been dropped from Picard’s suit under confidential terms at some point. It’s unclear how much money they gave to the victims’ restitution fund, but a later settlement reduced Mark’s and Andrew’s estates by a combined $23 million, leaving them with $1.75 million and $2 million, respectively.
Unlike Deborah West, Susan Elkin’s marriage to Mark Madoff was over long before the family’s involvement with the financial scandal that rocked the world. Mark and Susan divorced in 2000, per People, but The Daily Mail revealed that Susan managed to stay close to Mark’s mother, Ruth, revealing how Ruth celebrated her 76th birthday in 2017 with Elkin and her new husband at their Connecticut home. Ruth legally owns a condominium ten minutes away from her ex-daughter-in-law’s house which she frequently visits.
Except for the fact that Ruth’s closeness to Susan Elkin was a constant source of stress for Mark’s second wife that’s about all the public information available about her. Meanwhile, Mark’s widow published her memoir, The End of Normal: A Wife’s Anguish, A Widow’s New Life, in 2011. Mack’s book, excerpted by The Daily Beast, reveals the painful details of the family’s fallout as a result of Bernie’s crimes, including Mark’s first suicide attempt, which occurred approximately one year before he tragically succeeded in taking his own life.
Mack’s book also revealed her strained relationship with Ruth Madoff, whom Mack accused of making constant little digs and comments used to feed her animosity toward Mark’s ex-wife, Susan, according to Vanity Fair excerpts. Throughout the book, she vehemently defends Mark’s innocence, even referring to him as a hero for intervening in time to prevent Bernie from distributing the alleged $140 million in bonus checks to employees just before his arrest. She wrote,
Ruth loved to build you up, and then not so much knock you down as flick you aside. That was a $140 million holdup-in-progress that my husband and his brother stopped.
According to a 2012 Harper’s Bazaar interview, Stephanie and Mark decided together that she should change her last name to avoid the scrutiny that the Madoff moniker would forever bring. They chose Mack by combining M from Madoff with ACK, their beloved Nantucket’s airport code.
The subject of the name change has become a source of contention for the family, particularly between Stephanie and Andrew, who told author Laurie Sandell (via The Daily Mail) that the name change was an indication of deeper issues in their relationship, and that Mark even feared Stephanie was about to leave him during this time. Stephanie has repeatedly denied this claim, but the schism between Stephanie and the Madoffs has persisted.
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