Madoff's Accountant Acknowledges Guilt, Casts Himself as Victim

Madoff's Accountant Acknowledges Guilt, Casts Himself as Victim - 11-4-2009 , Class Action News, Class Action, Securities News, shareholder class action, claim, litigation, securities action, common stock'>

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Madoff's Accountant Acknowledges Guilt, Casts Himself as Victim
Mark Hamblett

New York Law Journal. November 4, 2009
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EXCERPT: The accountant who helped conceal Bernard L. Madoff's record-breaking Ponzi scheme pleaded guilty Tuesday, admitting in Manhattan federal court that he rubber-stamped financial statements used to deceive regulators and investors. David G. Friehling, 49, entered guilty pleas before Southern District of New York Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein to single counts of securities fraud and investment advisor fraud, four counts of making false filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and three counts of obstructing or impeding administration of the Internal Revenue laws. Friehling, the accountant for Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities since 1991, allocuted to the facts needed to support guilty pleas on a superseding information offered by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Lisa A. Baroni and Marc O. Litt, but not before an introductory statement in which he cast himself and his family as victims of Madoff. "In what was surely the biggest mistake of my life, I placed my trust in Bernard Madoff," Friehling said. Standing next to defense attorney Andrew Lankler of Lankler & Carragher, Friehling said, "At no time was I ever aware that Bernard Madoff was engaged in a Ponzi scheme." Friehling, who was initially charged on July 17, pleaded guilty as part of a cooperation agreement with the government in which he pledged to help prosecutors and investigators discover who else may be criminally responsible for investor losses now estimated to be in excess of $20 billion. "I want to apologize to the Madoff victims for the role I know I played in this massive and devastating fraud," he said. Friehling, a certified public accountant at Friehling & Horowitz in New City, Rockland County, N.Y., told the court he has cooperated with prosecutors from the outset on the investigation into Madoff, who was sentenced in June to serve 150 years in prison by Southern District of New York Judge Denny Chin.

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