Frank DiPascali, the "chief financial officer" for Bernard Madoff Investments, was denied bail by a judge yesterday, in spite of both the defense's and prosecution's arguments that DiPascali was cooperating. U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan was skeptical of that, "The only people he could cooperate with are in a prison in Butner or in the bottom of a swimming pool someplace." Ouch!
DiPascali had pleaded guilty in August and faces 125 years for his part in the massive fraud. His lawyers, working with prosecutors, proposed bail of "a $10 million bond co-signed by nine DiPascali relatives and others, about $2 million in security and home detention with electronic monitoring." However, Sullivan wanted to be sure that his relatives would be ruined if DiPascali fled, "When people start telling me to trust them, I generally watch my wallet. Until December 2008 nobody here had the slightest clue of the greatest fraud in U.S. history."
Sullivan also read aloud an email of a Madoff scam victim, "Why torment us any more by letting him out on bail?" This comes as the trustee who is liquidating Madoff's assets identified $21 billion in losses (or over $60 billion in fake profits)—$534 million has been paid out to victims so far.
