Metro

Ex-Madoff comptroller: Bernie got involved in my love life

Bernie Madoff: relationship counselor?

Enrica Cotellessa-Pitz — Madoff’s former comptroller who copped a plea to falsifying company records and making bogus submissions to government regulators — told a Manhattan jury on Monday that she once got an earful from the Ponzi villain after she dumped another co-worker, who would also wind up taking a fall in the epic fraud scheme.

Cotellessa-Pitz said she dated former Madoff lieutenant Frank DiPascali Jr. — who is also slated to be a government witness in the Manhattan federal court trial of five ex-Madoff staffers — but broke his heart by breaking up with him in 1979.

She said she was then shunned by co-workers for initiating the split and even “reprimanded” for it by Madoff, who the government claims was enmeshed in a “love triangle” with one of the co-defendants and has been repeatedly accused of cheating on his wife.

“[Madoff] said I should go back with Frank, but that was not going to happen,” she told jurors. “People were angry with me because I broke it off. Frank was unhappy, and I was the cause of it.”

Cotellessa-Pitz, 54, said she and DiPascali grew up together in Queens and hooked up shortly after she interviewed for a job at Madoff Securities following high-school graduation in 1976.

“I didn’t get the job, but I got a boyfriend,” said Cotellessa-Pitz, causing the courtroom to break out in laughter.

DiPascali, Madoff’s longtime chief financial officer, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy, securities fraud and other charges related to the scheme.

Cotellessa-Pitz was eventually hired in 1978 to help the company transfer its records to computers. She rose to comptroller, a post she held for decade until the feds busted Madoff in Dec. 2008.

Cotellessa-Pitz said that shortly after the breakup her only office “friend” was her then-boss Daniel Bonventre, the former operations chief who is among the ex-Madoff staffers on trial for profiting from the scheme.

She said other co-workers eventually mellowed and that she wound up becoming good friends with another co-defendant, ex-Madoff secretary Annette Bongiorno.

Cotellessa-Pitz said she even went with Bongiorno to pick up her wedding rings before the secretary got married in 1981, adding that she and her husband would routinely visit with the Bongiornos at their Boca Raton, Fla., home.

Prosecutors said they expect Cotellessa-Pitz to testify through most of this week since she is a key witness in their cases against Bonventre, Bongiorno, accounts manager Joann Crupi, and computer programmers George Perez and Jerome O’Hara. DiPascali, the government’s star witness, will testify at a later date.