Excerpt: Inside the Madoff Family, the Mets Connection

Dec. 12, 2010 — -- The following excerpt is taken from Brian Ross's book "The Madoff Chronicles," published by Hyperion.

Bernard Madoff's sons Andrew and Mark knew him to be a generous man.

Thanks to their father, they were both multi-millionaires. Madoff paid his boys big salaries at the family firm, gave them platinum American Express cards, loaned them money for expensive homes, helped them through divorces, and provided millions of dollars to their charitable foundations.

We gave them everything, their mother Ruth would later lament when Bernie's crimes split parents and children in an ugly family feud rife with accusations and recriminations.

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"Why don't you investigate those two boys," said one person close to Ruth Madoff. "You'll never find anyone more self-serving."

"He was a crook and she was an enabler," said a person close to the sons, describing the boys' parents.

Andrew was crushed by his father's arrest and the aftermath. "Now, we're orphans," he told someone close to him.

The boys were raised amidst wealth and privilege in the New York suburb of Roslyn, on Long Island. Mark was the eldest, born in 1964. Andy was two years younger, born in 1966. There never seemed to be any question that they would join the family business.

"They started at the bottom," recalled Madoff's long-time secretary Eleanor Squillari. "It was nice to see two brothers who were so close." Each had a distinctive personality. "Mark was more vibrant and more noticeable. Andy's very reserved and polite. He keeps to himself. He observes before he gets to know you."

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Even before they finished college, Bernie had the boys come to the office. "When Mark first came in," Eleanor said, "before he started working full time, he used to sit out and answer the phones with me. He seemed to know so many of the people, because he grew up around these people."