Ponzi monster Bernie Madoff was her White Knight.
That’s the message a lawyer for Madoff’s longtime former secretary Annette Bongiorno presented on Thursday to jurors in an elaborate power-point presentation in Manhattan federal court.
The dog-and-pony show by lawyer Roland Riopelle trried to persuade jurors that Bongiorno and four other ex-co-workers on trial for fraud were duped by the Wall Street “rock star” the same way that thousands of more sophisticated people were for decades.
The presentation included a 1988 photo under the title “Bernie Madoff as Annette saw him” that captured the Ponzi king sitting regally atop a horse with wind blowing through his tousled hair.
Another, nearly five-decade-old photo showed the short, now-frumpy 68-year-old Bongiorno looking glamorous and bubbly at the age of 19, posing with her left hand extended. It was taken with other co-workers when she first started working for Madoff.
Madoff was “a kind of a rock star in the securities industry,” Riopelle later said.
Defense lawyers representing other the ex-staffers on trial also used their opening statements to contend their clients were fooled by Madoff’s charm – just like a long list of others, including federal regulators, billionaire clients and celebrity investors like Steven Spielberg and actor John Malkovich.
And in a stunning revelation, Larry Krantz, a lawyer for former Madoff staffer George Perez said Perez and another computer programmer on trial, Jerome O’Hara, were “so uncomfortable” with programs Madoff and former finance chief Frank DiPascali asked them to create that they sent themselves letters in Sept. 2006 to document these concerns.
The letters remained sealed until they were indicted years later on fraud charges. The letters were then presented to their lawyers and opened.
“I have expressed to my boss, Frank DiPascali, my unwillingness to work on projects which I am uncomfortable with,” Perez wrote in the letter revealed to jurors.
“I don’t know how far up the ladder my unwillingness has been communicated, but it a matter of … time before it hits the top. I fear for my job, my family, my future.”
Krantz described the letters as Perez and O’Hara’s way to “deal with discomfort and fear” they had about having to ultimately answer to Madoff for not following orders.
“They knew how powerful he was,” Krantz said. “They didn’t know what they were stepping into.”
Madoff eventually called both computer programmers into his office and made a convincing argument that the work they were being asked to do was legal – and then eased their minds by dropping the work request.
“He told them their fears were unjustified and that he had been doing business for 40 years [with no legal problems],” said Krantz.
The feds in openings on Wednesday claimed the five defendants – which also include former account manager Joann Crupi and former finance chief Daniel Bonventre — helped keep the Ponzi scheme going for over 30 years through lies and filings millions of pages of false documents to dupe federal regulators, financial institutions and investors.
And while prosecutors said upcoming testimony by DiPascali, the feds’ star witness for the trial, would provide an insider’s perspective of the alleged fraud, lawyers for the defendants portrayed DiPascali a compulsive liar who would say anything to get a lesser prison sentence.
DiPascali pleaded guilty to fraud charges in 2009.