Frank DiPascali was the Chief Financial Officer at Bernard Madoff Securities and essentially ran the business on a daily basis. Seemingly untouched by the Madoff criminal investigation, DiPascali provided the information prosecutors needed to generate the evidence of Madoff’s fraud.
Whatever assistance DiPascali provided it was not without the prospect of being charged with a criminal act. Unable to avoid the consequences of his association with Madoff, DiPascali is to be arraigned on criminal charges next week in U.S. District Court in New York.
The best DiPascali can hope for is a prison term not exceeding 20 years and the forfeiture of his property and other assets. Having worked with Madoff continuously for 34 years it would extremely difficult to argue in his defense that he was unaware of the fraud Madoff committed.
More than assisting in the operation of the business, there is the issue of whether DiPascali was in fact a co-conspirator to the Madoff swindle. Since the likelihood of being charged as such is greater than not, it would benefit DiPascali to enter into a plea agreement with prosecutors for a shortened prison term.
DiPascali is one of the actors in the Madoff scam and there are many others whose indictments are to follow. This is more of the fall-out from the egregious misconduct of the SEC in failing to identify Madoff’s fraud, which in itself may rise to the level of criminal negligence.
Who will prosecute the SEC for their criminal act?
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