Madoff’s Longtime Accountant Is in the Soup

MANHATTAN (CN) - Bernard Madoff's longtime accountant aided and abetted Madoff's falsification of books and records for a monthly fee of $15,000 to $20,000, the SEC and U.S. attorney claim in separate lawsuits.

The SEC sued Paul Konigsberg, of Greenwich, Conn., in Federal Court.

The U.S. attorney filed parallel criminal charges against Konigsberg, in the same court.

Konigsberg was "a longtime accountant for several wealthy investment advisory clients of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. ('BMIS')," the SEC says in its lawsuit.

It continues: "From at least the mid-1990s through late 2008, Konigsberg, as an accountant for many of BMIS's clients, aided and abetted BMIS' s falsification of books and records that related to the accounts of several of his clients by collaborating with an employee of BMIS ('Employee X') to: (1) decide upon or direct desired investment and/or tax gains and losses to be manufactured and reflected on his client's BMIS account statements and in BMIS's computer systems; (2) confer about backdated trades and fictitious account activity entered into those computer systems to create the desired results; and (3) return and/or destroy his clients' BMIS account statements so that Employee X could enter alternative fictitious account activity, which she often discussed with Konigsberg, and reflect that activity on new account statements."

The SEC claims Konigsberg was paid for the "accounting services" he provided to these clients, and Madoff and BMIS also paid him "a monthly fee of $15,000 or $20,000 as a 'retainer' for providing accounting services to a wealthy and longtime Madoff client and his adult children."

The SEC seeks disgorgement, an injunction and penalties for aiding and abetting books and records violations.

The five-count criminal complaint accuses Konigsberg of conspiracy, false statements, falsifying statements of an investment adviser, falsifying records of a broker-dealer, and conspiracy to commit ERISA fraud.

The U.S. attorney claims Konigsberg committed his offenses from 1992 through 2008.

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