Jury finds Madoff Five guilty on all counts

Jefferson Siegel/New York Daily News Daniel Bonventre, who was the operations chief of Bernard Madoff's firm, has been found guilty for his role in Madoff's Ponzi scheme.Jefferson Siegel/New York Daily News Annette Bongiorno, who ran an investment unit in Bernard Madoff's firm, has been found guilty for her role in Madoff's Ponzi scheme.Jefferson Siegel/New York Daily News Joann Crupi, a former account manager in Bernard Madoff's firm, has been found guilty for her role in Madoff's Ponzi scheme.Jefferson Siegel/New York Daily News Jerome O'Hara, a former computer programmer in Bernard Madoff's firm, has been found guilty for his role in Madoff's Ponzi scheme.Jefferson Siegel/New York Daily News George Perez, a former computer programmer in Bernard Madoff's firm, has been found guilty for his role in Madoff's Ponzi scheme.

Some of Bernie Madoff's former employees will be joining in him federal prison.

A Manhattan jury convicted five of the master scammer's former office workers on all counts Monday afternoon, finding they helped to execute the fraudster's $65 billion Ponzi scheme.

The 11 person jury came to the decision after 20 hours of deliberations spread out over two weeks - and after the 12th juror was excused because of illness.

The 11 had sat through a five month trial, heard from more than 40 witnesses and waded through hundreds of pieces of evidence.

Prosecutors said the quintet cooked the books at Madoff's firm, making up phony securities trades and lying to trick auditors. Prosecutors say they ripped off investors and helped Madoff dodge $240 million in taxes.

Each faces maximum sentences of between 58 to 211 years.

Madoff, 75, was sentenced in 2009 to 150 years in prison after a judge called his massive scam - telling investors he was making trades when he was actually hoarding their cash in a slush fund - 'extraordinarily evil.'

'For nearly 40 years, (Madoff) ran one of the largest frauds in history ... and each of these defendants played a crucial role,' Assistant U.S. Attorney John Zach said during his closing arguments last week.

'These defendants told an avalanche of lies.'

The employees claimed they were clueless to what was going on during their lengthy tenures with Madoff.

Defendants Daniel Bonventre and Annette Bongiorno worked at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities for more than 30 years. The Ponzi scheme king hired Joann Crupi in the 1980s and Jerome O'Hara and George Perez in the 1990s.

Bonventre was Madoff's operations manager, in charge of various books and records. The 67-year-old, who testified on his own behalf, said he had almost nothing to do with the investment advisory arm of the firm, which Madoff used to build his twisted scheme.

But prosecution witnesses and some documents told another story.

Bonventre was present in 2005 when Madoff held a meeting with insiders to discuss how to hide losses sustained by the legitimate broker-dealer arm of his firm, said former finance chief Enrica Cotellessa-Pitz, testifying as part of a plea deal with the feds.

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''You all know what we do here,'' the serial swindler said in the closed-door confab, according to Cotellessa-Pitz . 'There was silence in the room.'

The crooked crew decided to obtain loans using stolen investor bonds as collateral, Cotellessa-Pitz said. Jurors were shown documents linking Bonventre to the loans, including a letter to JPMorgan bank with his signature.

The jury also saw charts and checks that demonstrated how Bonventre used Madoff's dirty money to send his son to The Dalton School on the Upper East Side, pay his own country club dues and buy fancy cigars.

Madoff's right-hand man in the Ponzi scheme, Frank Dipascali, told jurors that Bonventre was plotting to save his own skin as early as 2006. Over drinks at the Vong restaurant in Midtown, he outlined his 'exit strategy.'

'He explained what his exit strategy was going to be. That he was always told these trades were happening in Europe and that he was always told, 'Mind your own business. This has nothing to do with you,'' Dipascali said, also testifying pursuant to a plea deal.

Bongiorno, a Howard Beach, Queens, native hired straight out of high school as a firm secretary, became a manager in the investment advisory unit.

For decades, she built bogus investor accounts records via 'cut and paste,' an underling testified.

Bongiorno, 65, testified that she didn't know she was doing anything wrong because she trusted Madoff completely.

The fireplug kept a picture of Madoff on herr desk with the words 'my hero on it.

'I believed what he told me. I never even thought of the word 'illegal,'' she testified.

She also told jurors she saw nothing strange about the $80 million in her own Madoff investment account because she rarely withdrew cash to pamper herself.

Evidence against Crupi, an office aide, came from Dipascali, who defense lawyers ripped as a corrupt con man. Dipascali, 57, recalled giggling with Crupi as they printed a fake document and tossed it around 'like a medicine ball' to make it look worn.

The feds said O'Hara, 50, and Perez, 48, wrote computer programs to generate sham records.