Prosecutors asked a federal judge Tuesday to jail besieged financier Bernard Madoff, saying he tried to pick "winners and losers" in his $50 billion fraud when he and his wife shipped more than $1 million in jewelry to relatives and friends over the holidays.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Marc Litt said in a letter to U.S. District Judge Lawrence M. McKenna that there were no conditions of bail that will ensure the 70-year-old former Nasdaq chairman is not a danger to do financial harm to the community and a risk to flee.

"No matter the loss amount determined by the sentencing court, it appears that defendant will not be able to come remotely close to having the resources necessary to make his victims whole," Litt wrote. "Accordingly, every possible penny of the defendant's assets must be protected from dissipation."

Madoff was scheduled to be at a hearing before the judge Wednesday afternoon, two days after a magistrate judge ruled that he could remain in his $7 million penthouse despite government claims he was trying to disperse valuable jewelry and watches to close relatives and friends.

"By doing so, the defendant showed that he would not be deterred in his efforts to pick the winners and losers of his fraudulent scheme," Litt said.