Assets of Madoff's brother frozen

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The brother of Bernard Madoff has had his assets frozen by a US court, after nearly half a million dollars with which he was entrusted went missing.

Peter Madoff was trustee for New York student Andrew Ross Samuels' inheritance, which has since been lost in his brother's infamous fraud.

Peter Madoff was an executive at his brother's firm, Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities.

Bernard Madoff has insisted he acted alone in masterminding the fraud.

"Samuel's grandfather passed away making Peter Madoff the trustee of a trust for him that's worth about $500,000, and the money isn't there," said Mr Samuel's lawyer Steven Schlesinger.

"When you are the trustee and the money's not there, it's per se liability," he added.

The lawsuit in Nassau County court claims Peter Madoff took $478,000 that belonged to Mr Samuels and invested it in his brother's Ponzi scheme, whereby early investors were paid off with the money injected by new clients.

Bernard Madoff is awaiting sentencing for the $50bn ($34bn) investment fraud.