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Madoff’s firm operated as the family cookie jar – just dig in and take, there’s plenty for everybody.
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Both of Bernard Madoff’s sons, the one who eventually hanged himself and the one who’s still with us, created accounts out of thin air, and put together made-up loans with which they bought expensive Manhattan real estate, diverting tens of millions of dollars from their father’s firm, a court-appointed trustee said on Tuesday.
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In an amended lawsuit against Andrew Madoff and the estate of Mark Madoff,
Irving Picard, who is in charge of liquidating Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, told the court his impression that those two brothers simply felt they deserved all this money, regardless of whether or not they actually earned it. He said their activity reflected their “sense of entitlement, ” Reuters reported.
Citing testimony from Frank DiPascali, the firm’s former finance chief who is cooperating with prosecutors, and will soon be going away for many years, Picard accused the brothers of deleting emails linking them to their father’s Ponzi scheme, even as the 2005 US Securities and Exchange Commission examination of the firm’s finances was going on.
The lawsuit, filed in US Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, alleges that Madoff’s firm operated as the family cookie jar – just dig in and take, there’s plenty for everybody.
Picard is looking to recoup $153.3 million from Andrew Madoff, from the estate of Mark Madoff, and from Mark’s widow, Stephanie Mack.
Martin Flumenbaum, an attorney for Andrew Madoff and Mark Madoff’s estate, called the new allegations “unfounded, ” and said the two Madoff boys never “knew of, or knowingly participated in their father’s criminal conduct. The trustee has forgotten that it was Andrew and Mark who turned their father in to the authorities.”
Mark Madoff committed suicide on Dec. 11, 2010, on the second anniversary of his father’s arrest.
The amended lawsuit was filed after the Madoff accountant Paul Konigsberg pleaded guilty on June 24. He was the 15th Madoff associate to plead guilty or to be convicted.
So far, Picard has recouped $9.82 billion out of an estimated $17.5 billion stolen.
According to the lawsuit, in one deleted email Andrew Madoff told his brother: “I spoke with dad who conferred with Danny, ” a nickname for Daniel Bonventre, a back office director who’s since been convicted of fraud in March. “Apparently everything is in balance, so we don’t need to worry.”
And then, Andrew Madoff added: “I love my job. I love my job. I love my job. Oops, Dad’s calling me again.”
