Madoff's properties in NYC, Florida up for sale

NEW YORK — It's where Bernard Madoff broke down and confessed to his massive fraud, frantically wrote checks for millions of dollars as the scheme unraveled and appeared in a bathrobe to greet the FBI agents who arrested him.

Soon the world will see whether Madoff's luxury penthouse apartment — perhaps the only former crime scene featuring four fireplaces, a wraparound terrace and closet space galore — also will hit the jackpot on the Manhattan real estate market.

The U.S. Marshals Service plans to put the 4,000-square-foot duplex in a 12-story doorman building on the Upper East Side up for sale this week, betting that exclusivity outweighs notoriety.

Madoff "is behind bars," said deputy U.S. Marshal Roland Ubaldo during a tour offered Tuesday to The Associated Press. "We believe the cloud has passed."

The marshals also gave the AP a look inside the disgraced financier's 8,700-square-foot, Mexican-tiled estate in Palm Beach, Fla., a yacht and two smaller boats docked in Fort Lauderdale — property it hopes to sell off to raise tens of millions of dollars to help reimburse victims.

Prices for the New York and Florida home won't be set until brokers are selected later this week. His seaside beach house on southeastern Long Island was listed last week for $8.75 million.

Madoff estimated his Manhattan apartment was worth $7 million, the Florida home $11 million and the boat $2.2 million in a federal declaration late last year.

Under a court order stripping the Madoffs of most of their wealth, the marshals also want to bring in more money by auctioning off the boats and furnishings still in the homes, including a baby grand piano and several works of art.

Madoff, 71, was sentenced in June to 150 years in prison for masterminding a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that spanned decades and burned thousands of investors.

Monthly statements told clients their securities accounts were worth tens of billions of dollars. But authorities say late last year in a meeting at the apartment, Madoff told his sons Mark and Andrew that the double-digit returns were "all just one big lie," a confession repeated to FBI agents who showed up the next day.

Like all visitors, the agents came to the apartment in an elevator that opens directly through a door with a mezuzah, a small ornamental box containing a prayer scroll that is commonly affixed to entrances of Jewish homes. Chinese sculptures of howling dogs sit on shelves flanking the doorway.