Participants in the Madoff investment scandal

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.

[4] 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.

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.

[10] 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.

[11] 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.

In 2007, Aksia, a hedge fund consultant, warned its clients to stay away from Madoff for that very reason; its CEO, Jim Vos, likened this situation to General Motors being audited by a three-person firm.

It later emerged that officials at Fairfield Greenwich Group, operator of the largest Madoff feeder fund, had been aware as early as 2005 that Friehling was the firm's sole employee.

According to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), Friehling was enrolled in their peer-review program, but was not required to participate because he advised the group that he had not conducted audits for 15 years.

[33] [34][35] Peter stepped down from the board of directors of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) in December 2008, as news of the Ponzi scheme broke.

[38][39] On April 3, 2009, his temporarily frozen assets previously ordered were modified to be allowed to spend up to $10,000 per month for living expenses, including mortgage loans and insurance premiums.

[34][35] On April 13, 2009, Judge Arthur Hiller in Bridgeport, Connecticut, dissolved the temporary order he imposed March 30 freezing her assets, because they were already frozen by the federal government.

The pension fund case was Retirement Program for Employees of the Town of Fairfield v. Madoff, FBT-CV-09-5023735-S, Superior Court of Connecticut (Bridgeport)[43] She did not attend her husband's sentencing.

[70] Picard had sued Ruth Madoff for $44.8 million, saying she had lived a "life of splendor" on the gains from the fraud committed by her husband, but settled for less, given her limited assets.

[4] The New York business paid Mark $770,000 in 1999 and rewarded him with a deferred-compensation plan valued at $5 million, but he withdrew his personal funds he had invested with his father's investment-advisory operation some time before his divorce.

[43] On June 16, 2009, former employees Richard Stahl and Reed Abend filed separate lawsuits against Madoff's sons claiming nearly $2 million in deferred compensation.

[92][93] On March 15, 2010, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss, citing they were also victims, saying the lawsuit is "predicated on the faulty assumption" that the sons exercised a compliance function over the investment advisory business.

[137] Madoff was able to pitch his business in Europe and South America indirectly through Fairfield fund's founder, Walter Noel's son-in-law Andrés Piedrahita.

[139] On April 1, 2009, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts filed a civil action charging Fairfield Greenwich with fraud, breaching its fiduciary duty to clients by failing to provide promised due diligence on its investments.

[142][143] On April 13, 2009, Judge Arthur Hiller in Bridgeport, Connecticut, dissolved the temporary order he imposed March 30 freezing Noel's and Tucker's assets.

[148][149] On October 18, 2013, Kohn was found not guilty of the civil charges leveled against her by the High Court in London and thus relieved of any liability to the Madoff creditors.

[152] The Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is examining the role boards of nonprofits played, in possibly not conducting due diligence on donors' contributions.

[153] On April 6, 2009, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed civil fraud charges[154] against J. Ezra Merkin alleging he "betrayed hundreds of investors" by moving $2.4 billion of clients' money to Bernard Madoff without their knowledge.

[162] On June 22, 2012, Merkin avoided prison after agreeing to pay back $405 million to investors in his hedge funds without any finding of fraud on his part.

[169][170] Richard Spring, of Boca Raton, Florida, received payments from Cohmad for many years in exchange for bringing investors and investment ideas to Madoff.

It cited $526,000 in referral fees paid from Madoff Investments, to Cohmad, to Vienna Bank Medici majority owner, Sonja Kohn, which she subsequently denied.

The lawsuit claims that up to 90 percent of Cohmad's income came from referring clients and that the firm had a "symbiotic" relationship with Madoff, having earned hundreds of millions of dollars from the fraud.

The pension fund case is Retirement Program for Employees of the Town of Fairfield v. Madoff, FBT-CV-09-5023735-S, Superior Court of Connecticut (Bridgeport)[43] The Tremont Group is represented by Michael Gruenglas of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in New York.

[210] On April 14, 2021, the day Madoff died, the case settled immediately before proceedings were due to begin in court before Mr Justice Mark Sanfey, and was scheduled to last 24 weeks.

[213] A $1 billion class-action federal lawsuit was filed in Colorado against Fiserv, Inc. of Brookfield, Wisconsin, whose subsidiaries were custodians for pension or IRA accounts and invested with Madoff.

[216][217] He told prosecutors that after the main backoffice secretary on the 17th floor–Annette Bongiorno in the 1970s and 1980s, and Judi Crupi from the 1980s onward–told him how much money should be "invested" for a client, he would note how much volume actually occurred so the "trades" looked real.