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Hindustan Times - Bernard Madoff, whose $50-billion fraud devastated individual and institutional investors worldwide, could spend the rest of his life in prison after pleading guilty later this week.
In a court hearing Tuesday, defence lawyer Ira Sorkin said that Madoff would plead guilty Thursday in federal court in New York. The news confirmed recent reports that Madoff was expected to enter a guilty plea.
At the hearing, Assistant US Attorney Marc Litt said that Madoff faces 11 criminal counts including securities fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, three counts of money laundering and filing false statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Litt said that Madoff faces up to 150 years in prison on the charges under federal sentencing guidelines, The Wall Street Journal reported online.
Reuters – A hedge fund manager overstated values by hundreds of millions of dollars, set up a phony accounting firm and showed uniformly positive returns for nine years to defraud investors, U.S. authorities said on Wednesday.
James Nicholson, 42, founder of Westgate Capital Management LLC of New York, was arrested and criminally charged with securities fraud and bank fraud in causing losses of as much as $100 million since 2004, prosecutors and the FBI said.
He appeared in U.S. Magistrate’s Court in Manhattan where a judge set bail of $10 million secured by five co-signors and three properties. The judge ordered Nicholson released when he meets those conditions, but he would be under house arrest with electronic monitoring.
Prosecutor Joshua Klein told the court the purported fraud could effect 372 investors. "There is a potential additional hundreds of millions of dollars involved and we have no idea where that money is," Klein said.
Nicholson’s attorney Ira Sorkin said in court that his client was not a risk of flight and that home detention was sufficient to ensure court appearances.
Sorkin, a veteran securities attorney, represents Bernard Madoff, the once-respected Wall Street trader and investment manager arrested and charged in December with a purported $50 billion global fraud.
Investigators say they have uncovered several frauds across the United States in recent months following the market meltdown.
Bloomberg - A hedge fund manager who used the same defense lawyer as Bernard Madoff received a sentence that was a third of the maximum possible after he was convicted of defrauding investors out of $10 million.
Vincent Montagna remains free on bail more than two years after pleading guilty. He was sentenced to 40 months in prison instead of a possible 9-year term. His lawyer, Ira Sorkin, also represents Madoff, the New York investment adviser U.S. prosecutors accused of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
Though Montagna and Madoff aren’t known to be connected beyond their choice of attorney, the case may provide a window on Madoff’s prospects in avoiding or reducing the maximum 20 years in prison he faces if convicted. Madoff, 70, is free on bail, though restricted to his Manhattan apartment.
