Bernie Madoff screwed Uncle Sam almost as badly as he did his clients.
During the fraud trial of five Madoff staffers accused of profiting off Madoff’s epic $65 billion Ponzi scheme, prosecutors revealed an IRS analysis showing that the 75-year-old mega-scammer, who is serving a 150-year federal-prison sentence, was a tax deadbeat to the tune of $242.9 million for the years 1993 through 2007.
He reported only $183.5 million in taxable income over the period when he should have listed $829.1 million, according to an analysis of Madoff’s federal tax filings and testimony by IRS agent Margo Dabnee.
For example, Madoff was found to have a federal “tax deficiency” of $28 million for 2000 by grossly under-reporting his taxable personal income as $37.7 million, according to Dabnee’s “summary of tax delinquency.”
In reality, his “corrected taxable income” for that year was a staggering $108.6 million, the chart showed.
The amount Madoff owed seemed so obscene that at one point, Assistant US Attorney Randall Jackson, while questioning Dabnee’s calculation of $242.9 million, asked, “Just to be clear, we’re talking about millions of dollars, right?”
In 2010, Madoff ranked No. 68 on New York state’s list of Top 250 tax deadbeats, then owing $984,000 in back state taxes. He is not on the most current list, which was updated this month, but his brother, Peter, is listed at No. 50, owing $1.5 million.
Dabnee also told jurors that three of the five staffers on trial were also tax delinquents — on a much smaller level.
She said ex-Madoff operations chief Daniel Bonventre had owed slightly more than $2 million off federal filings for 1992-2008, ex-secretary Annette Bongiorno was delinquent $239,334 for 1994-2008, and ex-accounts supervisor Joann Crupi owed $38,041 in taxes for 2004, 2007 and 2008.
Another government witness, FBI agent Mollie Brewster, gave jurors vivid details of how Bonventre got a fortune being a trusted Madoff staffer.
She said Bonventre got more than $3.5 million in “unreported income” from perks from 1992 to 2008. This included $228,000 from Madoff for Bonventre and his family to be members of the ritzy Richmond County Country Club on Staten Island, $933,088 to settle his three Amex cards, and $197,016 so Bonventre’s son could to attend the exclusive Dalton School in Manhattan.
The perks were part of $15.3 million she said Bonventre made off of Madoff from 1992 until the company was shut in 2008.
Bonventre earned a $8.9 million salary over the period and also cashed $2.7 million out of Madoff Securities’ crooked investment-advisement account.