Madoff with the Money

Color Plates

At Far Rockaway High School in Queens, class of June '56 graduate Bernie Madoff was considered a "dummy" by some classmates, but he also established bonds with wealthy school chums who later invested and lost in his Ponzi scheme.

Madoff is pictured here a year later in his freshman year at the University of Alabama, but soon left to be closer to his girlfriend back home, Ruthie Alpern.

Source: University of Alabama Corolla yearbook.

A far different Bernie as he poses emotionless for his U.S. Justice Department mug shot after he admitted in December 2008 that he was running history's most massive fraud, bilking thousands out of billions of dollars.

Source: U.S. Dept. of Justice.

Bernie and Ruth socialized in chic places from Palm Beach to the French Riviera where investors—wealthy and middle class alike, thousands of them—invested in Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities and were taken to the cleaners by the con man.

The couple is shown here at the September 2007 wedding of niece Shana Madoff to Eric Swanson at the Bowery Hotel in New York.

Source: Rex USA.