A key witness in the trial of five Bernard Madoff aides testified on Monday that one of the accused aides told him in his Manhasset driveway in 2009 that she did not give him up to prosecutors investigating his fraudulent trading reports, according to published reports.
David Kugel, a former trader who pleaded guilty in 2011 to his role in Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme, said neighbor Annette Bongiorno, a former Madoff assistant accused of overseeing the preparation of phony account statements, appeared in his Manhasset driveway unexpectedly as investigations stemming from Madoff’s arrest in 2008 intensified, according to Newsday.
“She told me she went and spoke to the prosecutors and told them that the backdates trades came from the trading room,” Kugel testified, according to Newsday. “She said she didn’t know where they came from in the trading room, that…she didn’t point the finger at me.”
According to Newsday’s report, the defense maintains that Bongiorno, 65, did not know what she was doing was wrong or that her boss was running a Ponzi scheme from within his wildly successful hedge fund, but prosecutors are expected to argue she met with Kugel so that they would not implicate each other.
During cross-examination, Kugel rejected the possibility that Bongiorno was innocent in the matter, according to Newsday’s report.
“She did know it was wrong,” he told defense lawyer Roland Riopelle.
Kugel also reportedly testified that Madoff aide Joann Crupi, also among the five accused, helped him procure five loans for himself and family members by preparing false account statements and other documentation.
According to the New York Daily News, the trick enabled Kugel and his wife to purchase their Manhasset home, as well as another property in Boca Raton, Fla.
