Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow:-

Much remained a mystery about Bernie Madoff’s crime even after he pleaded guilty in March 2009. But one thing, it that everybody knew was true was this: his wife and sons were guilty too. From the first weeks after his arrest, unidentified “former prosecutors” and “criminal lawyers who have followed the case” and “legal sources” were repeatedly quoted in various media outlets asserting that Ruth, Mark, and Andrew Madoff were under investigation and would soon be indicted. Glossy magazine articles would speculate carefully; garish Internet blogs would accuse recklessly; television commentators would wink and nod knowingly“ All that fierce, smug certainty about their guilt~ unsupported by any cited facts-effectively drove Madoff's immediate family into exile.

In an era of hypermedia, with mobile phone paparazzi and Internet commentators constantly on the alert for ways to attract attention, it is worth noting that these attacks on the Madoff family were a sharp departure from the typical public reaction to cases of white- collar crime, going back more than a century. Of course, such criminals-confidence men, embezzlers, crooked politicians, fraudsters of all kinds-were attacked savagely by the press and the public when their crimes came to light. But their wives and children were almost never included in those attacks; rather they were almost always ignored or, at the very least, quickly left alone. There were a few exceptions where criminal charges were actually filed against a close relative, who was then pulled to the whipping post of public attention. In general, however, even the wives and children of executed murderers were left to rebuild their lives in relative obscurity, unless they sought the spotlight themselves.

The treatment over the years of organized-crime defendants is instructive. Despite widespread fascination with the murderous escapades of so- called “Mafia dons” and crime-family “capes”, it was extremely rare for any attention to fall on the elderly Mrs. Mafia Don or the capos’ children-even though a realist might have wondered how much they knew about Why their husband or father had asked all his closest buddies to wear guns and sleep on mattresses in the garage. On rare occasions, a mobster’s relatives actively courted publicity. But those who didn’t were routinely ignored by the media and certainly were never publicly and repeatedly accused of complicity in their husbands’ 0r fathers’ crimes. Yet the public outcry against Ruth Madoff and her sons began almost from the instant of Madoff’s arrest and did not cease. By the time he pleaded guilty, it was deafening.

From the beginning, however, there were facts in the Madoff case that just didn’t seem to be consistent with the family’s guilt. First, there was the fact that none of them fled the country. Perhaps Bernie Madoff, seventy years old at the time of his confession, felt too old and tired to leave as a wealthy fugitive; and perhaps Ruth, even if she were guilty and faced arrest and a lifelong imprisonment, would not leave without him. But his two sons, if they were guilty, had the opportunity, the means, and the motive to flee. The end was clearly in sight weeks in advance, there was still a princely sum in the bank, and they and their families were relatively young and portable. Surely, Madoff, before turning himself in, would have handed his sons the keys to the company jet and enough cash to let them live comfortably beyond the reach of the law for the rest of their lives. After all, if they were his accomplices, their only other option would have been to stay and go to prison.

And yet Madoff did not and neither did his wife or sons.

Then, there was his confession. Some hostile theorists immediately argued that Madoff and his guilty sons staged his confession so they could turn him in and thereby deflect suspicion from themselves. But this would have been a worthless gesture unless they all could have been absolutely sure that no incriminating evidence would surface later and none of their other low-level accomplices would finger the sons in a bid for leniency-assumptions that were not remotely realistic if the sons were actually guilty. Moreover, if Madoff truly believed anyone could be insulated from suspicion simply by turning himself in, wouldn’t he have arranged for that to be Ruth?

Logic aside, assumptions about the family’s guilt began to run up against the fact that, as the Madoff investigation progressed, the predicted arrests of his wife and sons simply did not happen.