'I love you, look after your mother': Madoff's text that son thought was suicide note after arrest

• Call to police over message on mobile

By Craig Mackenzie
Updated: 14:07 EDT, 28 October 2011

A son of disgraced Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff called police in a panic after receiving a mobile text message he thought was a suicide note from his father.

Madoff told his sons Mark and Andrew he loved them and to look after their mother.

Andrew rang the authorities who checked on his father and assured him that he was in good health and there was no problem..

Father and son: Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff and his son Andrew who was shocked by a mobile message from his father

It was the first contact he'd had with them four months after his arrest for a billion-dollar fraud, according The book Truth And Consequences.

The book, a copy of which has been obtained by Associated Press, recounts how Madoff and his wife Ruth Madoff, tried to kill themselves weeks after his arrest.

Madoff, 73, who stole billions of dollars in the largest Ponzi - pyramid - scheme in history and pleaded guilty to fraud charges, told ABC's Barbara Walters he felt happier in prison than he had in 20 years.

Walters interviewed Madoff for two hours at the prison in Butner, North Carolina, where he is serving a 150-year sentence. No cameras were allowed in the jail.

Pill overdose: Ruth Madoff, wife of disgraced financier Bernie, has spoken for the first time about how they tried to kill themselves

She said Madoff told her he thought about suicide before being sent to prison but now no longer thought about it.

His comments come before his wife's appearance on Sunday's edition of CBS' 60 Minutes TV show, in which she talks about the Christmas Eve 2008 suicide attempt.

"I don't know whose idea it was, but we decided to kill ourselves because it was so horrendous what was happening," she says in the interview, according to excerpts released by CBS.

She says the couple took "a bunch of pills" including the insomnia prescription medication Ambien, but they both woke up the next day. She says the decision was "very impulsive" and she's glad they did not die.

Andrew Madoff will also talk about his experience on CBS.

The publishers had been promoting Truth And Consequences since the summer, when it alerted booksellers that an untitled book, by Anonymous, would be coming out in the autumn.

It would tell 'the inside story of life with one of the most controversial figures of our time.'

Stores were asked to blindly order the book, knowing neither the author nor the title, a sales technique reserved for high-profile releases.

Ms Sandell had extensive access to the Madoff family and interviewed Ruth and Andrew Madoff and his fiancee Catherine Hooper.

The book presents a complicated portrayal, showing family ties that were seemingly both a blessing and a burden.

Happier days: Ruth Madoff, pictured centre, with her husband Bernie and son Mark, right, who committed suicide last year

It recounts their reactions to the news that their world was built upon a lie as well as the aftermath, and the damage it did to their relationships with each other.

It features moments like the one when Andrew Madoff remembers his mother shouting at him over his and his brother's refusal to sign on to his father's bail agreement, as well as his sister-in-law's refusal to allow his mother at Mark Madoff's memorial.

Truth And Consequences comes out 11 days after Stephanie Madoff Mack's The End Of Normal: A Wife's Anguish, A Widow's New Life. Ms Mack was the wife of Mark Madoff, who hanged himself on the second anniversary of his father's arrest.

She wrote: 'I hated Bernie thoroughly and deeply from the instant Mark told me what he had done.

Madoff, arrested on December 11, 2008, ran his scheme for at least two decades, using his investment advisory service to cheat individuals, charities, celebrities and institutional investors.

An investigation found Madoff never made any investments, instead using the money from new investors to pay returns to existing clients - and to finance a lavish lifestyle for his family. Losses have been estimated at around 20 billion dollars, making it the biggest investment fraud in US history.