NEW YORK – A prosecutor on Monday asked that Bernard Madoff be jailed pending trial, saying the disgraced financier violated an agreement with the court by mailing watches, jewelry, cufflinks and mittens worth more than $1 million to relatives and friends.

“The defendant’s recent actions amount to obstruction of justice,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Marc Litt told U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis at an hour-long bail hearing. The prosecutor said one package of items that was accompanied by a handwritten note from Madoff may alone be worth more than $1 million.

The judge ordered both sides to submit written arguments this week and said he would rule later.

Madoff’s lawyer, Ira Sorkin, said his client did not violate a court-imposed asset freeze by mailing heirlooms including $25 cufflinks, pens and a $200 pair of mittens through the post office to his brother, a son and daughter-in-law and a New York couple vacationing in Florida.

Sorkin called it an innocent mistake and said Madoff and his wife sought the return of the items they had sent on Dec. 24 as soon as they were told they could not send them out. He also suggested that some of the items mailed belonged to Madoff’s wife, and therefore were not subject to a court order at that time.