Honey, I Shrunk the Bank Account

Can you imagine coming home and telling your husband of 37 years that you've lost your life savings? That all of the money you insisted the two of you invest with that nice Bernie Madoff is gone? And oh, by the way, you had an affair with the slickster?

"Sweetheart, you've got to believe me," you desperately plead. "I totally trusted this guy. I slept with him for Pete's sake. I never dreamed he'd screw me like this. But don't worry, honey. I've got a plan to get every penny back."

Similar words were presumably uttered by one Sheryl Weinstein. Due to their investments with Bernie Madoff, she and her husband Ronald were forced to sell their apartment in Manhattan. They basically lost everything.

At his sentencing hearing, Ms. Weinstein recalled the day she first met Mr. Madoff. “I now view that day as perhaps the unluckiest day of my life because of the many events set into motion that would eventually have the most profound and devastating effect on me, my husband, my child, my parents, my in-laws and all of those who depended on us."

Well no shit, Sherlock I suppose so.

Talk about a double screw-jobber. Madoff was screwing people left and right and screwing her blind, too -- literally and . . . well, literally.

Urging the judge to hand down a heavy sentence, Ms. Weinstein told the court that Madoff "is a beast that has stolen for his own needs the livelihoods, savings, lives, hopes and dreams and futures of others. He has fed upon us to satisfy his own needs. No matter how much he takes and from whom he takes, he is never satisfied. He is an equal opportunity destroyer.”

Of course at the time, it was not publicly known that Madoff had "known" Ms. Weinstein in the biblical sense, that she had once willingly "satisfied" old Bernie's "needs."

And knock me over with a feather, Ms. Weinstein has written a tell-all book about her sordid and, let's hope for her sake, torid affair. Amazon is already accepting advance orders. The book is due to be released on August 25th.

Bernie's lawyer, Ira Sorkin, is taking it all in stride. But then, he's not the one in jail. “She’s entitled to her free speech, I suppose,” said Mr. Sorkin. “Why one would go public with something like that, I don’t know. She’s entitled to say anything that might be deemed derogatory about herself.”

I guess old Ira doesn't watch much reality TV.

Ruth Madoff had no comment. But given the fact she has to tell the bankruptcy trustee every time she spends more than $100.00 on herself, this is hardly surprising.

As for Ms. Weinstein's husband, Ron, who once sized Bernie up as "unassuming, a very nice guy"? Err, Ron now feels he was "a very poor judge of character," leaving us all to wonder just whose character he is referring to.

Ironically, this same Ronald Weinstein once passionately declared, "“When inmates have served their sentences, if they are trained in laundry jobs, then our industry should make an effort to hire and assist them in their transition as they join us in the workplace.”

Alrighty then.