Madoff accomplice to plead guilty
Friday, 30 October 2009 16:39The accountant accused of helping Bernard Madoff steal billions of dollars in Wall Street's biggest Ponzi scheme is ready to plead guilty.
According to prosecutors, David Friehling will agree to cooperate with the US government and will enter a guilty plea on Tuesday.
Friehling, who ran his accountancy out of a suburb of New York, faces up to 108 years in prison if he pleads guilty to all seven charges of fraud, false filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and obstructing the tax authorities.
However, defendants often receive lighter sentences if they plead guilty and co-operate with investigators.
Investors duped in Madoff's scam lost $21.2 billion, the court-appointed liquidator said on Wednesday.
The figure, far higher than an earlier estimate of $13 billion, represents estimated losses by investors who put more into Madoff's fraudulent investment firm than they withdrew, said the liquidator, Irving Picard.
Madoff, now serving a 150-year prison sentence for fraud, claimed just before his arrest last December to have been managing $65 million. However, much of that appears to have comprised fake funds, not investors' cash.
