He’s “The Prisoner of Park Avenue.”
Bernie Madoff is whining to anyone who’ll listen that he’s being held captive in his palatial penthouse and unable to traipse around the Big Apple as he did before being busted for running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, a source familiar with the scam artist told The Post.
“I’m a prisoner in my own house!” Madoff fumed. “I can’t go anywhere! I’m stuck here all day!”
Madoff, who effectively is under house arrest as part of his $10 million bail, has been especially agitated that “he can’t even go outside just to go to the corner, or get something to eat,” the source said.
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The source added that it is clear that the disgraced 70-year-old financial maven is feeling sorry for himself while hanging out in his $7 million pad – even as thousands of his victims scramble to avoid bankruptcy, loss of their own homes or worse.
Madoff’s moaning comes less than two weeks after he dodged a bid by federal prosecutors to revoke his bail because he and his wife, Ruth, mailed their sons and others more than $1 million worth of jewelry last month.
But instead of locking him up pending trial, a judge merely tightened Madoff’s bail restrictions.
Those restrictions already included security guards monitoring his residence at Park Avenue and East 64th Street around the clock.
In recent days, The Post has learned, private contractors have been moving at the request of federal authorities to install wiretaps on Madoff’s apartment phones and computers.
“If he surfs the Web or makes a call, it’s going to be tracked,” a source said.
Meanwhile, authorities have seized control of millions of documents that Madoff stored in a Queens warehouse, sources familiar with the site said.
Last week, more than a dozen people believed to be lawyers and others working for the federal government pored through those documents, which are contained boxes stacked high in the building.
Management at the warehouse referred questions to Irving Picard, the trustee overseeing the bankruptcy of Madoff’s firm, who did not respond to a call seeking comment.
Also yesterday, a former employee complained in court papers that Madoff left him on the hook for the lease of a 2009 Mercedes-Benz S550-4, which was intended for the fraudster.
Craig Kugel, 34, said Madoff’s brother, Peter, told him to sign for the $90,000 vehicle after Madoff’s firm refused to provide credit information to a Long Island dealership.
According to papers filed in US Bankruptcy Court, Kugel got a default notice earlier this month for $1,700 to cover the January payment, with more than $58,000 still owed.
Additional reporting by Erik Shilling