Imprisoned financier Bernie Madoff is not exactly known for his moral rectitude, so it’s not entirely surprising to hear that he slept with one of his employees. (The world already knows that he had affairs with some other people and liked to throw cocaine-fueled workplace parties.) According to federal court documents filed this week, Madoff was involved in a love triangle with one of the five former staffers currently being prosecuted for their alleged roles in his massive Ponzi scheme. In fact, the papers say that four of the five defendants had sexual or romantic relationships with one another, other co-workers, or clients. (Or maybe all three!)
Prosecutors have actually asked that the naughty details be excluded from the trial “as unduly prejudicial evidence,” but it’s probably not because they’re above the high-profile water-cooler gossip — as the New York Daily News’s sources speculated, the government is likely trying to “protect the credibility” of expected witnesses with “first-hand knowledge” of the more salacious stuff that happened at Madoff’s Wall Street firm. The documents did not name any names, but the New York Post points out that his intra-office relationship was probably with one of the two female defendants: office supervisor Annette Bongiorno (who is accused of knowingly sending out phony account statements) or Joann Crupi, who handled investor funds and previously told the court that she is a lesbian. Or does “love triangle” mean that Madoff was sleeping with one of the male defendants’ wives? Really, we’re pretty sure we don’t want to know, but we’re also pretty sure that the specifics will come out once the trial, which is scheduled to start October 7, gets underway, if not before.
