The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged two Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities employees for their roles in the Madoff Ponzi scheme.
Annette Bongiorno, who started working for BMIS in an administrative role in 1968, regularly created false books and records, the SEC alleges. She also helped mislead investors via telephone conversations, account statements and trade confirmations that reported securities transactions that never occurred as well as positions that did not exist. Additionally, using her own BMIS accounts, Bongiorno created false trades, so she could cash out millions of dollars more than was deposited.
JoAnn Crupi, who managed the main bank account used in BMIS's investment advisory operations, helped facilitate the fraud and deceive investors, auditors and regulators into believing BMIS was a genuine venture. When the fraud was near collapse, Crupi helped choose which accounts should be cashed out and prepared checks for those selected investors, many of whom were friends or family of Madoff.
