Federal prosecutors have filed suit against several of Bernie Madoff’s “back-office” employees, seeking the return of assets they purchased with false returns. Among them is Annette Bongiorno, whose job it allegedly was to create the client statements. Bongiorno had been with the firm since the beginning, in 1968, which explains why the statements were all printed on old-school dot-matrix printers. Despite this misstep, the WSJ reports:
For her work, she allegedly was well paid, receiving $313,548 in salary and bonus in 2008, $623,580 in 2007; and $200,200 a year in 2006 and in 2005, prosecutors said. She received the salary and bonus despite spending much of her time in Florida and working only a fraction of her former schedule beginning in 1995, prosecutors said.
Sweet.
Sweet.
And then there were the cars and homes!
Ms. Bongiorno also allegedly withdrew more than $14 million from Madoff accounts in her name and the name of her husband between 1985 and December 2008 despite only investing about $904,000, prosecutors said. The accounts showed a purported balance of more than $53.2 million in November 2008, prosecutors said.
We guess the reason nobody noticed anything was amiss was because she lived so quietly.
