Former Bernard Madoff employees on trial for allegedly aiding his $17 billion fraud are focusing their defense on ex-colleagues who helped perpetuate the scheme and weren’t charged. At least three people who for years promoted fake trading strategies with clients of Madoff’s investment advisory unit or helped write tickets for fictitious trades weren’t prosecuted, Frank DiPascali, Madoff’s former finance chief, who is testifying against his ex-colleagues, said yesterday in Manhattan federal court. The people didn’t know it was a fraud because DiPascali lied to them for years, he said under questioning from defense lawyers. More on Bloomberg [...]

The ex-financial chief for Ponzi scheme architect Bernard Madoff admitted Wednesday that he continued to destroy incriminating records even as federal investigators swarmed the financier’s Manhattan headquarters five years ago. Frank DiPascali, the star prosecution witness against five former Madoff co-workers, testified that he shredded documents in a 17th floor office while investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission and other agencies questioned other employees in a conference room one flight above. More in USA Today [...]

Bernard Madoff’s right-hand woman for four decades, who’s on trial for allegedly aiding his $17 billion fraud, overheard the same lies for years about her boss’s wealth that tricked everyone else, a jury was told. Annette Bongiorno, who ran the investment advisory unit at the center of the Ponzi scheme, was often nearby when Madoff talked about overseas investments and ownership in French banks, Madoff’s ex-finance chief testified today in Manhattan federal court. Madoff’s claims led some workers to believe he had invested customer money, said Frank DiPascali, who pleaded guilty for his role in the fraud. More on Bloomberg [...]

A U.S. Treasury Department watchdog tried to examine whether JPMorgan Chase & Co interfered with a regulatory probe into its relationship with convicted felon Bernard Madoff but the largest U.S. bank was able to nip the inquiry in the bud, a government official said on Monday. The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of the Inspector General was examining whether JPMorgan interfered with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s attempts to probe the bank’s relationship with Madoff, Rich Delmar, counsel to the inspector general, said in an email to Reuters. More on Reuters [...]

In a new email from federal prison, convicted con artist Bernard Madoff claims federal regulators “eagerly accepted” information he offered about JPMorgan Chase, which is in talks with U.S. authorities about a potential $2 billion settlement over its alleged role in the Madoff fraud. “I am not looking for any type of credit for my assistance, just their honesty,” he wrote in an email to CNBC dated Friday. “Nothing I could do at this point would help my image.” More on NBC News [...]

Former Bernard Madoff finance chief Frank DiPascali’s testimony against five former co-workers charged with aiding the disgraced financier’s Ponzi scheme could be a double-edged legal sword that helps both defense and prosecution. DiPascali, who pleaded guilty to $17.3 billion fraud and hopes to reduce the 125-year maximum prison term he faces by cooperating with the government, has helped prosecutors give Manhattan federal court jurors a firsthand look into how the scheme operated. He has also provided details of alleged wrongdoing by the defendants. More in USA Today [...]

Five years after Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernard Madoff’s arrest, his claim that he alone was responsible for the more than $17.3 billion fraud is being demolished in the conspiracy trial of five former employees charged with helping him. Over six days of testimony, star prosecution witness Frank DiPascali has implicated his former co-workers in fabricating decades of arbitrarily backdated trading records and gains, crafting bogus financial documents to fool auditors and other alleged wrongdoing — all while collecting millions of dollars in salaries and company perks. More in USA Today [...]