Paid Expenses
Peter Madoff pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of falsifying records of an investment adviser. Both offenses carry maximum sentences of five years in prison.
Peter Madoff admitted to improperly avoiding taxes by having the firm pay many of his expenses, which he didn’t report as income. He also said he filed false reports with regulators that helped conceal the fraud. After learning of the Ponzi scheme, Peter Madoff said he helped his brother parcel out $300 million remaining in the firm to select friends and family members.
Peter Madoff repeatedly lied and violated the trust investors had in the firm, prosecutors said. His crimes began in about 1996 and continued until December 2008 when the firm collapsed, according to the government.
Sham Program
Had regulators and clients known the truth about the compliance program overseen by Peter Madoff, “it is possible that the fraud would have been detected years earlier and losses to the many victims would have been avoided,” prosecutors said in court papers Dec. 14.
Peter Madoff graduated from Queens College and Fordham University Law School, joining his brother’s firm in 1970, according to Wing. He and his wife, Marion, had two children: Shana, who would later work for the Madoff firm, and Roger, who worked as a Bloomberg News reporter and died of leukemia in 2006.
Federal prosecutors have obtained guilty pleas from Madoff’s former chief financial officer, Frank DiPascali, his former accountant, David Friehling, and former employees Craig Kugel, David Kugel, Enrica Cotellessa-Pitz, Irwin Lipkin and Eric Lipkin. They haven’t yet been sentenced.
Also facing charges are former employees Daniel Bonventre, Annette Bongiorno, Joann Crupi, Jerome O’Hara and George Perez. They have pleaded not guilty.
The case is U.S. v. Madoff, 10-cr-228, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).