Metro

Madoff pressured IT guys to create book-cooking program

Ponzi king Bernie Madoff pressured one of his former IT guys into creating a computer program to virtually cook the books, telling the nervous techie “I’ll give you some money — just do it!” after he tried to balk, a government witness testified on Tuesday.

The payoff for computer programmer George Perez — one of five ex-Madoff employees standing trail in Manhattan federal court for allegedly profiting from the epic $65 billion Ponzi scheme — was about $100,000, according to the feds.

Matthew Cohen – a managing director with a firm hired to unravel the fraud at Madoff Securities after Madoff was busted by the feds in December 2008 – told the jury that Perez made the shocking comments after he confronted him about various journal-entry similarities Perez and another computer programmer on trial, Jerome O’Hara, had in their personal investment advisory accounts with the company.

“[Perez said he] was asked by Mr. Madoff to modify past account statements that had been sent to customers,” recalled Cohen of AlixPartners LLP. “[Perez] told [Madoff] he was uncomfortable doing that. Mr. Madoff told him ‘I’ll give you some money — just do it!’ And he did it.”

Cohen never said how much was paid out, but US Attorney Matthew Schwartz in a Oct. 16 letter to Judge Laura Taylor Swain said Cohen could testify to knowing that Madoff paid Perez and O’Hara “approximately $100,000” each for creating the shady program.

While being cross-examined by Perez’s lawyer, Larry Krantz, Cohen claimed he wasn’t biased even though his company has made $75 million from the Madoff case in five years and he has profit-sharing plan.

Krantz last week had claimed in the trial’s openings that Perez and 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 both were indicted on fraud charges years later.

Krantz even told the jury that Madoff called both computer programmers into his office and told them the work they were being asked to do was legal – but then eased their minds by dropping the work request.

Meaghan Schmidt, another AlixPartners honcho testifying for the government, recalled a story that former Madoff operations chief Daniel Bonventre, who is also on trial, once told her about why he pulled his money out of the company’s investment advisory account in 2006.

“[He said he] woke up with a sick feeling in stomach one morning questioning the consistently high returns the account was getting,” she said.

Schmidt also filled in some blanks about $173 million in signed checks the feds have said were found on Madoff’s desk – ready to be mailed out to relatives, pals and staffers – when he was busted.

Schmidt said she found the checks, and they included $8.2 million made out to Marion Madoff, the wife of Bernie’s brother Peter; $1.4 million to former account manager Joann Crupi and her family; and $1.7 million to former secretary Annette Bongiorno and her family.

Crupi and Bongiorno are also on trial.