Real Estate Mogul Revealed as Buyer of Bernie Madoff's Montauk Coke Den
Billionaire real estate mogul Steve Roth has been unmasked as the lucky winner in the bidding for Bernie Madoff's Montauk $9.4 million beach house.
There were four bidders for the 1.2 acre, 3,000-square-foot beachside four-bedroom home, which sold last Friday. But the Wall Street Journal reports thatRoth, who heads the Vornado Realty Trust, won out. Maybe he just gets a kick out of the idea of living amid the ghosts of all Madoff's crazy coke parties—according to the New York Daily News' account of a lawsuit filed this week, Madoff's operation was an "animal house with 'a culture of sexual deviance' that often hosted drug-fueled parties featuring topless waitresses who wore little more than G-strings." Madoff referred to cocaine as "North Pole."
And the beach house does have an early-'80s Bolivian-marching-powder vibe to it. Can't you can almost see a skinny half-dressed blond rooting around on the floor behind that toilet, looking for glassine bags?