The NY Post reports: The Madoff family is on a financial leash — and a short one, at that.

Bernard Madoff’s sons, brother and niece yesterday agreed to a court-ordered freeze on their assets. They can’t sell, leverage, waste or move any property worth more than $1,000, or rack up more than that amount in debt.

The clampdown is the latest effort by authorities to squeeze more cash out of the family holdings, which once included three yachts, posh penthouses, summer mansions, artworks — all the lavish but ill-gotten gains from Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme.

Madoff, 71, who’s serving 150 years in prison, involved his immediate family in his investment business. His brother Peter was chief compliance officer at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC; Peter’s daughter, Shana Madoff Swanson, was a compliance officer; and Madoff’s sons Andrew and Mark were co-directors of trading.

None of them has been prosecuted yet in connection with the massive swindle. Last month, however, a lawyer for Peter Madoff disclosed in a New Jersey civil lawsuit that his client was under criminal investigation by US prosecutors.

They will all have to scrape by until courts finish the arduous process of winding down what’s left of the Madoff fortune.

The agreements require that none of them “will incur any debt, obligation, or other liability, directly or indirectly, beneficially or otherwise, beyond $1,000 without prior written approval. . . except for the ordinary use of credit cards. . .” They’ll also have to file monthly expense reports.

Irving Picard, a court trustee in the bankruptcy case for Madoff’s collapsed business, sued the four relatives for a total of $198.7 million in October, accusing them of treating the family business like a “personal piggy bank,” while turning a blind eye to Wall Street’s biggest investment scam.

The Madoff family denied Picard’s allegations and formally disputed the freeze in their court papers. However, they eventually consented to the freeze to avoid “the potential costs and expenses” that would be involved in the dispute, which could prove “substantial.”

The trustee’s lawsuit had accused the four relatives of being “completely derelict in duties and responsibilities” and having squandered company money on everything from luxury vacation homes to expensive restaurant meals.

Last July, Picard separately sued Madoff’s wife, Ruth, for $45 million. She claims to be broke.

In the court papers filed yesterday, the family members said they did not want the consent order to be interpreted as an admission of any of the claims made by Picard.

Martin Flumenbaum, an attorney representing Mark and Andrew Madoff, has said the lawsuit’s claims are baseless and that the brothers had no prior knowledge of their father’s crimes.

Feds are also trying to sell Madoff’s Palm Beach mansion, and recently sold his Hamptons estate for $9.41 million to real-estate mogul Steven Roth. Separately, European authorities seized one of Madoff’s yachts and held it in France.

Altogether almost $1.5 billion has been recovered for Madoff victims, including $220 million from the family of a longtime Madoff friend and client.

(Source: http://www.nypost.com/)