The Madoff scandal

According to the New York Post:

Madoff remains free on a $10 million bond, but by 2 p.m. today, he must come up with a total of four "fiscally responsible" people to co-sign his bond to stay out of jail. As of late yesterday, his wife and brother had already signed for him. He also must provide his duplex apartment as collateral.

This suggests several points:

(1) If Bernie Madoff hadn't ruined so many people, there would be a larger number of "fiscally responsible" people he might ask for help.

(2) Since Bernie Madoff is a thief, whose $10 million did he put up for bond? Certainly not his $10 million.

(3) How can Bernie Madoff's wife be a "fiscally responsible" person? What money does she have to be "fiscally responsible" with? Certainly not hers or her husband's since whatever is theirs was somebody else's before Bernie stole it.

(4) How can Bernie Madoff's duplex apartment, presumably purchased with stolen money, be used as collateral for bond? Can the goods a thief steals be used to bail the thief out of jail? Is this really legal? In any case, surely even now lawyers for the victims are preparing suits to take it if the government doesn't seize it first. How can any of Bernie Madoff's assets (I use that term loosely) be collateral for anything since obviously his assets are not legitimately his?

(5) If Bernie Madoff's wife and brother are "fiscally responsible" people, does that fact mean that he did not cheat them?

(6) Will his two sons, who ratted him out to the government, volunteer to help keep their father out of jail? Was ratting him out a clever way to deflect attention from them once the jig was up? Who believes that only Bernie was running this scam? Are we soon to discover a Madoff family crime syndicate?

(7) Why does anybody want Bernie Madoff to stay out of jail? To what end? He has stolen the life savings of old people and left them destitute. Why isn't jail the proper place for this man? One can allow for his wife's feelings, but even she can't possibly imagine that a man who robs elderly people of all their possessions (a lousy mugger steals only a wallet or a purse) ought to live free in his duplex luxury apartment while his victims lose their homes and eat in soup kitchens. Given the certainty that Bernie's victims will eventually seize all his possessions and leave him and his wife just as destitute as his victims, one might think that Mrs. Madoff would let Bernie stew in his own juices. The vow "for better or for worse" ought to stop short of suicide. Is Mrs. Madoff more than an innocent wife standing by her man?