(Reuters) - Bernard Madoff's former back office director was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday for helping the convicted fraudster conceal his massive Ponzi scheme for decades.
Daniel Bonventre, 67, is the first of five former Madoff employees to be sentenced over the next week, nine months after their conviction by a Manhattan federal jury of securities fraud, conspiracy and other charges.
U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain also ordered Bonventre to forfeit more than $155 billion, a symbolic sum for which he would and the other defendants who worked at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC would be jointly responsible.
"Mr. Bonventre, you lived a prestigious and luxurious life," Swain said at a hearing. "We now all know it was supported by a massive fraud."
In the first criminal trial stemming from Madoff's fraud, Bonventre was found guilty in March of all counts, as were former portfolio managers Annette Bongiorno and Joann Crupi and former computer programmers Jerome O'Hara and George Perez.
Madoff is serving a 150-year sentence after pleading guilty to running the unprecedented scheme, which cost investors more than an estimated $17 billion in principal losses.
Prosecutors accused the five aides of helping Madoff to hide his fraud from auditors, government regulators and the public through fake documents and bogus transactions.
The employees' lawyers said Madoff fooled their clients into believing the investment advisory business at his firm was legitimate.
"I was used by the ultimate con man," Bonventre told Swain on Monday.
But prosecutors called Bonventre one of the "core perpetrators of the massive fraud" and sought a sentence of more than 20 years in prison.
Prosecutors said Bonventre helped Madoff create false documents to deceive auditors and facilitated the transfer of nearly $800 million in clients' money from the fraudulent asset management unit to the firm's failing market-making and proprietary trading businesses.
Prosecutors also said Bonventre committed fraud while helping Madoff file false tax returns.
Bonventre's lawyers asked for home confinement or at most a short prison sentence, saying he was essentially a victim of a psychopath with a talent for deception.
In a surprise move, he took the witness stand during the trial, testifying that he had simply followed orders.
Fifteen people have been convicted in connection with the fraud. Bongiorno and O'Hara are scheduled for sentencing on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond and Joseph Ax; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
(Reuters) - A former manager at Bernard Madoff's firm was sentenced to six years in prison on Tuesday for helping the convicted fraudster carry out a Ponzi scheme that caused investors to lose billions of dollars.
Annette Bongiorno, who worked for Madoff from the 1960s until the firm's collapse in 2008, was the second of five former employees to be sentenced after being convicted in March of securities fraud, conspiracy and other charges in a Manhattan federal court.
U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain also ordered Bongiorno, 66, to forfeit $155 billion, a symbolic amount for which she and the other defendants who worked at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC would be jointly responsible.
The sentencing came a day after former Madoff operations director Daniel Bonventre was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Swain said Bongiorno, who was indicted in 2010, was not a "coldly calculating participant" in her boss's Ponzi scheme, but willfully blinded herself to the "corrupt illogicality" of what was going on.
"She could and should have looked at what was in front of her," the judge said.
Prior to being sentenced, a tearful Bongiorno apologized to victims of Madoff's fraud, calling her own ignorance "so severe it caused me to become a criminal.
"I didn't know what was happening," she said. "I didn't mean to hurt you."
Prosecutors accused Bongiorno, Bonventre, former portfolio manager Joann Crupi and former computer programmers Jerome O'Hara and George Perez of helping Madoff hide his fraud from auditors, government regulators and the public through fake documents and bogus transactions.
The defendants have said Madoff deceived them into believing his investment advisory business was legitimate. They are expected to appeal their convictions.
Lawyers for Bongiorno had sought a sentence of eight to 10 years in prison.
O'Hara is expected to be sentenced later on Tuesday, Perez on Wednesday and Crupi next Monday.
Madoff is serving a 150-year prison term after pleading guilty in 2009 to running a scheme that cost investors more than an estimated $17 billion in principal.
Fifteen people have been convicted at trial or have pleaded guilty in connection with Madoff's fraud.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Alden Bentley and Paul Simao)
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