New York, NY – A convicted accomplice to Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion dollar fraud has been freed on bail in exchange for his continued cooperation with the FBI and prosecutors who are trying to track missing investor funds.
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Frank DiPascali, 53, walked out of federal court surrounded by FBI agents and US marshals after being granted $10 million bail in February. A waiting Chevy Impala then drove the convicted swindler off – presumably to be re-united with his family.
Looking weary, DiPascali was wearing jeans, a grey t-shirt and his hair was long and curly. He did not answer NBC New York reporter Jonathan Dienst’s questions about what happened to the billions he helped steal or whether he thought he deserved to be sent home in exchange for his cooperation in the Madoff investigation.
DiPascali must meet a series of bail conditions, including living under 24-hour-a-day house arrest and wearing an electronic monitor, as he awaits sentencing for his role in the massive fraud.
DiPascali’s attorneys offered a “no comment” when they left the court and were asked about their notorious convicted client being let out of prison.
It was last August that DiPascali, Madoff’s finance chief, pleaded guilty to helping cheat investors for more than 20 years. He faces up to 125 years in prison when he is sentenced.
Last year, Judge Richard Sullivan had rejected a first request for bail, but in February he reversed course after prosecutors said DiPascali had provided invaluable assistance in detailing Madoffs fraud.
Investigators have said DiPascali was instrumental in helping them bring charges last year against two former computer programmers.
Family and friends helped DiPascali raise the bail money and non-relatives agreed to risk $1 million in retirement savings to help the man already convicted of lying to investors.
DiPascali had said that before the Ponzi scheme unraveled he had always hoped Madoff would find a way to make enough money to repay investors.
“I knew it was criminal and I did it anyway,” DiPascali told Judge Sullivan.
Sullivan originally ordered DiPascali to jail immediately and said he would consider reducing his sentence if he cooperated with the FBI.
DiPascali and his wife, who have four children, also must forfeit all but $300,000 of their assets.
There was no comment from U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara about DiPascali’s release.
&…rubashkin??? NO WAY! he can not be out on bail, Y??? BECAUSE HE IS JEWISH????? WHERE ARE WE UP TO?
I know people will say I sound like a broken record. However this just shows again the level of hypocrisy with regards to the judges treatment of R’ Sholom Mordechai Hy”d .
This guy aided Berny Maddof In defrauding tens of thousands of people 65 BILLION dollars and faces 125 years and he was let out on bail. R’ Sholom Mordechai On the other hand was convicted of defrauding one or two banks in the inflated amount of 30 million or so which is pocket change compared to 65 BILLION and was denied bail on some absurd “right of return” reason.
In my opinion this reshante and all her cohorts in the goverment who helped in making R Sholom M look worse Osama Bin Laden where and are blatant anti semites and we shall not stand still and watch jewish blood being spilled in the streets of Iowa.
V’gam Lrabos all the conservative Jewish groups who helped in this mob lynching of R’ Sholom Mordechai Hy”d. I have no doubt in my mind that if ch’v another hitler ym”s would arise, you would be the first ones to help him line up and send all the frum yidden into the gas chambers. All I can say is SHAME ON YOU.
I really don’t know if we’re still living in a free country????????????
Some of the money is hidden away under the small tree in the side courtyard of Madoffs courtyard. Some more is in the roof attic crawl space. Another sum is in a package locked in a safe behind the Picasso in the Living Room. There is some loose change in the sofa and the couch in the guest bedroom. Ruthie has a few thousand in a purse in Palm Beach and the kids have a few hundred million in Citibank on the Upper East Side Broadway Branch. Add it up and you have a few billion.
i say the guy is brilliant madaoff, in jail yet he still controls outside of his authority, his is playing mind games with federal agents with “missing investor funds”. it may not even not exist.