The wife of imprisoned swindler Bernard Madoff was sued on Wednesday by the trustee recovering money for investors defrauded in Wall Street's biggest investment fraud, court documents showed.

The lawsuit said at least $44.8 million was subject to recapture from Ruth Madoff, who has been married to the former investment adviser and trader for 49 years.

Court-appointed trustee Irving Picard said of that amount, she received at least $23.7 million directly or indirectly from Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, the firm he is winding down.

For decades, Mrs. Madoff lived a life of splendor using the money of BLMIS's customers, the trustee said in the filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. Regardless of whether or not Mrs Madoff knew of the fraud her husband perpetrated ... she received tens of millions of dollars from BLMIS.

Madoff is serving a 150-year prison sentence in Butner, North Carolina, for a fraud U.S. prosecutors estimated at as much as $65 billion over at least two decades.

(Reporting by Grant McCool, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)