She doesn’t hunt fugitives. But she does hunt for buyers. She’s not typical of the people who work for the U.S. Marshals Service.
PALM BEACH, Fla. — Sally Schowalter pauses at the dark wood door to Bernard Madoff’s former home in Palm Beach, Florida, her eyes fixed on a U.S. Marshals Service sticker on the window warning against trespassing.
“It’s intimidating,” she tells her colleagues. “Can we take it off?”
Schowalter works for the Marshals Service, though she doesn’t carry a badge or a gun. Her job entails getting the best price for confiscated real estate such as the Florida house, appraised this year for $7.67 million by Palm Beach County. With the Madoff house, the hazards for those who work with Schowalter can be unusual — including flying dog poop hurled by a disgruntled passerby.
