Former Madoff Controller Pleads Guilty
Enrica Contellessa-Pitz pleaded guilty to conspiracy and other charges for her role in Bernard Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme this week in a US District Court in Manhattan. Contellessa-Pitz blamed Madoff for convincing her to lie to regulators, investors and the Internal Revenue Service, and said that she did not know that Madoff and others were stealing investors' money. The woman began working for Madoff's firm in 1978, while in college, and rose to the office of controller of the company 20 years later.
The sixth person to plead guilty in the $20 billion fraud case, Contellessa-Pitz pleaded guilty to conspiracy, falsifying financial records, and filing fraudulent documents with the IRS. If found guilty on all charges, she faces a maximum of 50 years for her role in the scheme, for which Madoff is currently serving a 150-year sentence in a North Carolina federal prison. Sentencing for Contellessa-Pitz has been set for June 22nd.
Shortly after Contellessa-Pitz was named controller, Madoff and others began instructing her to hide losses, adjust books, and even throw agencies like the IRS and SEC off the trail when they conducted audits. The SEC said that Contellessa-Pitz was being paid $450,000 a year by 2008, when the scheme was discovered, and that she and her husband had two accounts with the firm worth more than $3 million.
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