Pursuing efforts to jail Bernard Madoff, federal prosecutors disclosed Thursday that investigators had found about 100 signed checks to friends and relatives, totaling more than $173 million, on the day of his arrest.
They said the discovery of the checks in his office desk is more evidence that the trader was trying to keep his assets out of the hands of his investors.
“What the defendant failed to highlight for the court in his rendition of events is the fact that, prior to his arrest, he announced his intention to transfer $200-$300 million of the remaining investor’s assets to selected family, friends and employees,” Assistant United States Attorney Marc Litt said in the latest filing.
“The only thing that prevented the defendant from executing the plan to dissipate those assets was his arrest by the F.B.I. on Dec. 11,” Litt wrote.
The revelation came as part of a motion by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan to revoke Madoff’s bail after he mailed valuable jewelry, watches and other heirlooms to relatives and friends shortly after his arrest and in apparent violation of a court-ordered asset freeze in a separate but related case filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
A criminal complaint filed against Madoff on Dec. 11 alleged the 70-year-old had confessed to running a “giant Ponzi scheme” that may have cost investors more than $50 billion. He allegedly told his sons, Andrew and Mark, that he wanted to transfer what funds were left at his firm, $200 million to $300 million, to certain employees, relatives and friends.
In fact, investigators later found signed checks “ready to be sent out,” the filing says.
Madoff has been free on a $10 million bond, but is under 24-hour house arrest in his Upper East Side penthouse. The government sought to jail him Monday after learning of the mailings, which contained items valued at about $1 million. They argued he could continue to cause “economic harm” by shedding assets that should go to pay back victims of the alleged scheme.
In a court filing Wednesday, the trader’s lawyers argued he didn’t know the asset freeze applied to the items he mailed, which they described as “a few sentimental personal items.”
They also said he is already being watched around the clock, both for his protection and to prevent flight, and has an electronic monitoring device. They point out that he’s too widely known and too disliked to get very far if he tried to flee.
Instead of jail, they said that Madoff would accept having his property inventoried and all his outgoing mail checked to make sure he did not try to transfer valuables.
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2 Comments
#1. joe 03.15.2009
LOL… You’ve gotta be kidding, right?
What a piece of sh**!
Can you believe after financially CRIPPLING/devistating retirees, and completely unsuspecting and unknowing innocent people, he has the AUDACITY to start trying to send money, and some of the very “personal items” that the crime itself PAYED FOR!
Torture him, get all of the info you can out of him as to where the remaining money that he smuggled is, give ALL of it back to as many investors and retirees as possible and take him and every single person who had anything to do with the carrying out of these heinous crimes out to the ocean and teach them how to swim with the Sharks as they have for all these years!
All these slimeballs better be glad that the US is so WEAK and “understanding” when it comes to blantent ROBBERY and disgusting LIES, deceit, and life-long FRAUD!
They’d be shot where they stand in other cultures. Hmmmm….? There’s an idea.
#2. joe 03.15.2009
Complete Losers.
I only hope the victims can try to salvage what should have been a peaceful and enjoyable rest of their lives, and somehow manage to pass along what they worked their entire lives to give to their families, children, and grandchildren!
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