The sister of disgraced financier Bernie Madoff and her husband were found dead this weekend in what Florida police are treating as an apparent murder-suicide.

Officers in West Palm beach confirmed that Sondra Weiner and her husband Marvin were found with gunshot wounds inside their home and were unresponsive when officers arrived. 

In a statement, the police said: “Detectives from the violent crimes division arrived on scene to investigate further… after further investigation it appears to be a murder-suicide.”

Mr. Madoff's son Mark committed suicide in 2010, two years after his father was first arrested. At the time, a lawyer for the family said: “Mark Madoff took his own life today. This is a terrible and unnecessary tragedy...Mark was an innocent victim of his father’s monstrous crime.”

Bernie Madoff, the brother of Mrs. Weiner, died last year in prison, part-way through his 150 year sentence for fraud.

Madoff’s scheme involved robbing some clients at the bottom of his pyramid to pay off those at the top, was convicted of multiple fraud offences believed to be worth $64.8 billion.

He pleaded guilty to 11 separate federal frauds and in 2009 was sentenced to 150 years in prison, the maximum term allowed.

Hundreds of individuals, corporations and charities fell victim to Madoff’s scheme, said to have been the largest such Ponzi scheme in global history. Many of the charities were Jewish — Madoff and his wife Ruth were well-known figures in New York Jewish philanthropic circles and few of the charitable leaders thought twice about investing with him.

In court, Madoff apologised to his victims, saying: “I have left a legacy of shame, as some of my victims have pointed out, to my family and my grandchildren. This was something I will live in for the rest of my life. I'm sorry”.