NEW YORK, (Reuters) – Swindler Bernard Madoff’s firm was a “piggy bank” that enriched his extended family, supported their lavish lifestyle and paid for the house or personal expenses of at least two loyal longtime employees, according to court documents.
The papers, filed on Tuesday night by the court-appointed trustee winding down the firm to recover assets for defrauded customers worldwide, provide more details about the $65 billion fraud to which Madoff pleaded guilty on March 12.
For decades “Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities (BLMIS) was Bernie Madoff and Bernie Madoff was BLMIS, each the alter ego of the other” lawyers for trustee Irving Picard said in the filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York.
“This entanglement permitted Madoff, at his whim and desire, to engage in innumerable financial transactions wherein he essentially used BLMIS as his personal ‘piggy bank’ having BLMIS pay for his lavish lifestyle and that of his family.
