The wife of convicted fraudster Bernard Madoff's says she feels "betrayed and confused" by the actions of her husband.

Ruth Madoff has said, in her first public statement: "I am breaking my silence now, because my reluctance to speak has been interpreted as indifference or lack of sympathy for the victims of my husband Bernie’s crime, which is exactly the opposite of the truth.

She added: “The man who committed his horrible fraud is not the man whom I have known for all these years."

Her 71-year-old husband was sentenced minutes earlier to 150 years in prison for committing multibillion dollar investment scams.

Mrs Madoff said: “Nothing I can say seems sufficient regarding the daily suffering that all those innocent people are enduring because of my husband.

“But if it matters to them at all, please know that not a day goes by when I don’t ache over the stories that I have heard and read.”

A judge had already issued a forfeiture order stripping Mrs Madoff of $80 million in assets which she claimed were hers.