Madoff says he is not suicidal

BUTNER, N.C., Oct. 27 (UPI) -- Convicted investment swindler Bernard Madoff said he is past a suicidal phase, but is torn up by relationships with family members that appear destroyed.

Madoff, convicted of running a Ponzi scheme that lost investors billions of dollars, said he has not spoken to his wife, Ruth Madoff, since their eldest son, Mark, committed suicide Dec. 11, on the second anniversary of Madoff's arrest in New York, ABC News reported.

In an exclusive interview with Barbara Walters, Madoff said his wife visited him at the Butner, N.C., prison once a week and called daily until Mark's suicide. After their son's death, they met once and Ruth Madoff, "asked me to let her go, which I understood," Madoff told Walters.

Stephanie Madoff Mack, Mark's widow, has said if she ever met her former father-in-law again, "I'd spit in his face."

Madoff, however, said of his wife, "Ruth not communicating is the hardest thing. Ruth doesn't hate me. She has no one. It's not fair to her. She lost her first son. She is a devoted wife and didn't care about the money."

It was revealed this week in a New York Times article that Madoff and his wife attempted to commit suicide on Christmas Eve of 2008.

They each took what they thought was an overdose of Ambien, a prescription insomnia medication, but then woke up the next morning.

Ruth Madoff said she was "glad to wake up."

In prison, Bernard Madoff, who is serving a 150-year sentence, said he is no longer a suicide risk, but prison staff still check in with him on the subject every day.

He said he knew he would die in prison. He also said, "I deserved to be punished. I deserved to go to jail."