Legal News

Feds Targeting Bernie Madoff?s Brother, Sons, for Tax Fraud

By Ashby Jones

It’s been one of the last remaining big questions looming over the Bernie Madoff situation: Would prosecutors go after Madoff’s closest kin?

Last summer, prosecutors essentially made clear they wouldn’t go after Bernie’s wife, Ruth. But that’s not the case in regard to his brother, Peter, or his sons, Mark and Andrew. The WSJ’s Amir Efrati on Friday reports that federal prosecutors in Manhattan are tax-fraud pursuing cases against Bernard Madoff’s brother and sons. Click here for Efrati’s story.

His brother, Peter Madoff (pictured), was the chief compliance officer of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. Sons Mark and Andrew Madoff helped run the firm’s market-making division, which was separate from the investment arm where Bernard Madoff perpetrated his multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. Through representatives, they all have denied knowledge of the fraud.

Lawyers for Peter Madoff, who is in his 60s, didn’t respond to requests for comment about the tax-fraud probe. Martin Flumenbaum, a lawyer for Mark Madoff, 45 years old, and Andrew Madoff, 43, said in a statement that they had no prior knowledge of Bernard Madoff’s crimes and contacted authorities immediately after their father told them of his fraud. The sons “continue to cooperate fully with the authorities in their ongoing investigations,” he said.

The exact nature of the potential tax violations isn’t clear.

But Peter, Mark and Andrew Madoff were tax clients of David Friehling. Friehling pleaded guilty last year to criminal charges of preparing false tax returns for Madoff and other unnamed Madoff investors and also admitted to signing off on sham audits of the Madoff firm. He has said he had no knowledge of the Ponzi scheme.

Photo: AP

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 12, 2010 (boomark / email).