By Grant McCool

Prosecutors last week asked a judge to revoke Madoff's bail, saying he violated a December 18 court order freezing his assets by mailing more than $1 million worth of valuables to relatives and friends.

The items included a diamond necklace, 13 watches, an emerald ring, two sets of cufflinks, a diamond bracelet and diamond brooches, according to court papers. Prosecutors said he was a flight risk and had tried to disperse assets that the government might want to pay for investor losses.

Madoff's lawyer argued that he "simply did not realize" that sending personal items would contravene the court order. They added that he was not a flight risk because he is under house arrest and 24-hour surveillance.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis of U.S. District Court in Manhattan will make his written ruling "no earlier than 12 noon" according to a recorded message Monday on the telephone at his chambers.

Madoff, 70, a former chairman of the NASDAQ stock market, was arrested and charged on December 11 for what would be Wall Street's biggest Ponzi scheme, one in which early investors are paid off with the money of new clients.

If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison and millions of dollars in fines. Madoff confessed to his sons a month ago that for many years he ran a "giant Ponzi scheme" with losses of $50 billion, according to court documents.

The investment adviser has not appeared in court to formally answer the charge. He appeared in court at an initial hearing after his arrest and again on January 5 when the government demanded his bail be revoked.

A court hearing tentatively scheduled for Monday on the criminal charges against Madoff has been adjourned for 30 days, his lawyers said.

The government had until 30 days from Madoff's December 11 arrest to bring an indictment or decide to continue the case for now as a criminal complaint.

An FBI agent said Madoff told him "that he personally traded and lost money for institutional clients and that it was all his fault," according to court papers.

Fraud experts said the purported scheme was too complicated and went on too long to have been carried out by Madoff alone.

The investment adviser who has been a Wall Street figure for more than 40 years is the only person accused in the scandal surrounding his Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. The firm had a brokerage-trading arm and an investment advisory arm.

(Reporting by Grant McCool and Edith Honan, editing by Dave Zimmerman)