Madoff aide under house arrest in Manhasset
Annette Bongiorno, a former secretary at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, leaves federal court in Manhattan for her home in Manhasset where she will be under house arrest with a security cuff as she awaits trial. (Jan. 7, 2011) Credit: Bloomberg News
After nearly two months of legal battling, Bernard Madoff's former assistant was freed Friday on $3 million bail and will spend the time awaiting her New York trial under house arrest at her spacious manse in a gated Manhasset community.
Annette Bongiorno, 62, left federal court in Manhattan about 4 p.m. after pleading not guilty to conspiracy and fraud charges and being fitted with a special electronic ankle bracelet. It will monitor her whereabouts at 78 Stone Hill Dr. East as she awaits trial.
Bongiorno, who had been held in a federal lockup since Dec. 21, teared up as Judge Laura Taylor Swain approved a bail package in which eight friends posted cash and property to secure the bond, said defense attorney Maurice Sercarz.
"She was incredibly relieved," Sercarz told Newsday.
Bongiorno, originally from Howard Beach, was indicted in November on charges stemming from Madoff's Ponzi scheme in which investors were cheated out of an estimated $20 billion. Investigators have alleged that Bongiorno, who began working with Madoff in 1968, furthered the fraud by fabricating investor account statements that reported fictitious securities trades. The last statements issued by Madoff to his customers showed fictional balances totaling around $65 billion, according to federal prosecutors.
Investigators also have alleged that Bongiorno's $920,000 account with Madoff netted her $14.5 million in cash, which they said represented money taken from other investors. Bongiorno also received salary and bonuses ranging from $200,000 a year to $623,000 from 1995 to 2006, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Bongiorno was originally granted a $5-million bail in November and ordered confined to her home in Florida once she was able to find five people to guarantee the bond and surrendered her passport. But on Dec. 21 the court revoked the bail after finding that there were additional family bank accounts that raised the risk that Bongiorno would flee to avoid prosecution, court records showed.
In another Madoff development, The Associated Press reported some investors have filed papers in federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan challenging the historic $7.2-billion settlement by Madoff bankruptcy trustee Irving Picard with the estate of Jeffry Picower, a Florida philanthropist who died in 2009 and was the biggest beneficiary of Madoff's fraud.
In their Thursday filing investors contend the settlement leaves them with nothing to sue the Picower estate for. Picard is expected to file papers opposing the claim next week.
