US prosecutors seek 10-year term for Madoff brother
Peter Madoff pleaded guilty in June to helping his brother pull off the biggest Ponzi scheme in US history
Bernard Madoff’s brother, Peter Madoff, should get a 10-year prison term for his role in perpetuating the multibillion-dollar fraud, US prosecutors said.
Peter Madoff pleaded guilty in June in federal court in Manhattan to helping his brother pull off the biggest Ponzi scheme in US history, though Peter denied knowing the business was a sham until the firm collapsed. As part of his plea agreement, Madoff agreed not to seek a sentence other than the 10-year term, prosecutors said.
“The government submits that a sentence of 10 years is reasonable and appropriate in this case,” assistant US attorneys Lisa Baroni and Julian Moore said yesterday in a memo to the judge who will sentence Madoff.
Peter Madoff, who served as the chief compliance officer of Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC, helped his brother run the firm for four decades. Peter Madoff is scheduled to be sentenced December 20 by US District Judge Laura Taylor Swain.
Prosecutors said Madoff, who trained as a lawyer, repeatedly lied and violated the trust investors put in the firm and also made false statements to regulators and auditors. The government said his crimes began in about 1996 and continued until December 2008 when the firm collapsed, which the US said was the only reason his crimes stopped.
Victims’ Compensation
As part of his plea, Madoff agreed to forfeit $143 billion, “representing the amount of proceeds obtained as a result of the commission of the offenses,” Baroni and Moore said. The government will file a separate memo about victims’ compensation, prosecutors said.
“The defendant’s false statements, and his complete failure to fulfill his duties as the chief compliance officer of the firm, served to perpetuate the multibillion-dollar fraud in which thousands of investors were defrauded,” prosecutors said.
Had regulators and clients known the truth about the sham compliance programme, “it is possible that the fraud would have been detected years earlier and losses to the many victims would have been avoided,” Baroni and Moore said.
‘Massive’ Scheme
Madoff also engaged in a ’’massive tax fraud scheme’’ that enriched him and his family, the US said. He transferred millions of dollars to relatives to avoid paying taxes to the Internal Revenue Service. The money he took permitted him to enjoy a “lavish” lifestyle that included homes on Park Avenue in Manhattan, in Palm Beach, Florida, and in Old Westbury, on New York’s Long Island, prosecutors said.
In court papers filed today, prosecutors asked the court to forgo restitution in the case of Peter Madoff, saying the government can use the money to pay victims of the Ponzi scheme.
In Bernard Madoff’s case, US Circuit Judge Denny Chin ruled that restitution wasn’t practical and permitted the Department of Justice to use the same process.
Since then, the government has forfeited “billions” of dollars through a variety of civil and criminal forfeiture proceedings, prosecutors said.