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Participants in the Madoff investment scandal included employees of Bernard Madoff's investment firm with specific knowledge of the Ponzi scheme, a three-person accounting firm that assembled his reports, and a network of feeder funds that invested their clients' money with Madoff while collecting significant fees. Madoff avoided most direct financial scrutiny by accepting investments only through these feeder funds, while obtaining false auditing statements for his firm. The liquidation trustee of Madoff's firm has implicated managers of the feeder funds for ignoring signs of Madoff's deception. Although Madoff claimed to have executed the scheme alone, subsequent investigation has shown that he was assisted by a small group of close associates, as well as the feeders' self-interested indifference to the source of his investment returns. Madoff Securities International Ltd. In 2008, about $1 billion was transferred between Madoff's U.S. firm and Madoff Securities International Ltd. in London. On March 24, 2009, Judge Louis L. Stanton granted power of attorney to Irving Picard, trustee, over Madoff's controlling stake in London. Authorities in the U.K. are seeking evidence of money laundering involving the London business, Madoff Securities International Ltd., which opened in 1983 as a separate legal entity from Mr. Madoff's U.S. New York office. He allegedly sent more than $250 million beginning as early as 2002, from his New York-based firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, to the U.K. office and then back to accounts in the U.S. In 2000, Madoff began to add staff and expand the operation, and loaned the business $62.5 million. He had a staff of 25, including traders, managers and support. Instructions to staff was that they communicate with Madoff Securities through personal e-mail accounts, not through company e-mail. There were nine directors. Family members with shares included Mark and Andrew Madoff, Peter Madoff, and Bernard himself. Ruth Madoff, Bernard Madoff's wife, also held shares. Non-family members with shares included Maurice J. "Sonny" Cohn. Madoff and Cohn were shareholders in Cohmad Securities, which steered investors to Mr. Madoff's advisory business. In 1987, Mr. Cohn had shares of Madoff Holdings Ltd., a predecessor to the current London firm. In 1998, Mr. Cohn held 35,624 non-voting shares, some of which he transferred to "BL Madoff" in 1998, and the rest that he "disposed of" in 2004. Paul Konigsberg Paul Konigsberg, a New York City accountant and a longtime friend for more than 25 years, prepared two Madoff Family Foundation tax returns, and received the non-voting shares, valued at $35,000. He did work for the London office when it was first opened. A general ledger of Madoff accounts listed Konigsberg, of the reputable accounting firm of Konigsberg, Wolf & Co., as receiving $30,000 a month to advise the MSIL operations, and funnel client checks to the London office for Madoff's own use. Clients were often directed to Mr. Konigsberg by Mr. Madoff and his family. Mr. Konigsberg prepared the tax returns of foundations of six other families, many of which have lost millions, even hundreds of millions, of dollars. He also represented scores of individual Madoff investors. Mr. Konigsberg's firm has received a civil subpoena from the SEC. His Madoff-related clients included Carl and Ruth Shapiro, Boston philanthropists whose foundation lost $145 million, and whose son-in-law, Robert M. Jaffe, under investigation, is a Madoff business partner. Konigsberg held Madoff accounts under his name including two in the name of the Westlake Foundation. Paul J. and Judith Konigsberg are officers and directors of the foundation. He owns homes in his wife, Judith's name in Greenwich, Connecticut and Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. On April 20, 2009, Steven Leber filed a $4 million lawsuit against Konigsberg and his accounting firm for negligence, and breach of fiduciary duty. Konigsberg answered the charges with affirmative defenses. In June 2014, Konigsberg pleaded guilty in connection to the Madoff case and would consequently face up to 30 years in prison. On July 9, 2015, U.S. District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain agreed with prosecutors that Konigsberg did not know about Madoff's scheme and had cooperated fully with investigators. Swain ruled that Konigsberg had earned lenience from federal sentencing guidelines and did not have to serve any time in prison. Norman F. Levy Evidence is being gathered by investigators on a U.S.-U.K. task force that Konigsberg and Levy, a real-estate mogul and philanthropist are believed to be involved in an international transfer of money. Levy is believed to have helped Paul Konigsberg funnel checks to London. And investigators in New York say there were billions of dollars' worth of checks going back and forth between Madoff and Levy. Ruth and Bernie Madoff had an intimate relationship with Levy and his wife, Betty. Madoff was long known to have been Levy's "fixer," obtaining everything from choice restaurant reservations to emergency medical care. Levy had offices one floor below Madoff's in New York's Lipstick Building. It was Levy who introduced high-profile investors to Madoff. Jeanne Levy-Church's losses forced her to shut her JEHT Foundation and her parents' foundation, the Betty and Norman F. Levy Foundation, lost $244 million. JEHT helped the less fortunate, especially ex-convicts. Following the death of his wife, Levy's girlfriend, model Carmen Dell'Orefice, an investor, said Levy was Madoff's "father figure". When Levy died in 2005 at the age of 93, Madoff extolled him as a man whose friendship he had cherished and who had "taught me so much." Levy's son Francis said his father believed in Madoff: "If there's one honorable person," he said, "it's Bernie." Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection On April 14, 2009, the liquidators of Madoff International Limited of London filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy recognition in West Palm Beach, Florida, and sued Peter Madoff, to recover a 1964 Aston Martin DB2/4 automobile worth an estimated $200,000. In March and May 2008, Madoff International wire-transferred 135,000 pounds ($198,207) to buy a car for Peter Madoff, and delivered it to him at his residence in Palm Beach. Madoff International's listed assets are as much as $500 million and debt of more than $1 billion in its bankruptcy petition. The bankruptcy is designed to block U.S. lawsuits against foreign companies with U.S. operations while they reorganize overseas. Investors who filed an involuntary personal bankruptcy petition against Madoff want his business's U.K. unit's bankruptcy moved to New York because "overlapping discovery, related assets and common creditors" among the various cases mean they should be in the same court. The Chapter 15 case is In re Madoff Securities International Ltd., 09-16751, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of Florida (West Palm Beach). On June 8, 200.... Discover the Peter Bongiorno popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Peter Bongiorno books.