Fate of Madoff employees in hands of the jury

NEW YORK — The criminal conspiracy case against five former Bernard Madoff employees went to a federal court jury shortly after noon Monday, starting the final phase of a complex trial that began in October.

The nine-woman-three-man jury started deliberations after U.S. District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain gave them final legal instructions on the 31-count indictment against the former co-workers.

Juror No. 2, a man, briefly covered his face with his trial notebook after the judge appointed him as the jury foreman.

The proceeding, now among the longest white-collar crime trials in Manhattan federal court history, covers the first Madoff-related cases to be weighed by a jury. The mastermind of the Ponzi scam that stole an estimated $20 billion from thousands of investors pleaded guilty without standing trial after the scam imploded in December 2008.

Madoff, now 75, is serving a 150-year prison term at a federal penitentiary in North Carolina. The ex-employees face decades behind bars themselves if the jury finds them guilty on charges they knowingly participated in and profited from the fraud.

The defendants include Daniel Bonventre, 67, the former back office manager of Madoff's investment advisory firm; Annette Bongiorno, 65, who handled the financier's top clients; JoAnn Crupi, 52, who oversaw the company's bank account; and former Madoff computer programmers Jerome O'Hara, 50 and George Perez, 48.

They pleaded innocent and insisted throughout the trial that they were unwittingly hoodwinked by Madoff into performing job assignments that enabled the scam to run for decades.

The judge's instructions included legal guidance on the concept of "conscious avoidance," which she defined as someone deliberately closing their eyes "to what would otherwise be obvious to him or her."

Bonventre and Bongiorno took the stand in their own defense, a decision that enabled them to express their contentions directly to jurors — but also exposed them to cross-examina! tion by prosecutors. Keenly aware of that legal risk, the other defendants opted not to take the witness stand.

Instead, much of the defense's legal strategy focused on trying to raise doubts about the nearly 40 witnesses and dozens of exhibits and other evidence presented by prosecutors.

The heart of the case for both sides was the testimony of Frank DiPascali, the Mini-me to Madoff's Dr. Evil who was a manager of the Manhattan-based company's investment advisory division. During weeks on the witness stand, the star prosecution witness testified that Madoff never did any of the financial trading promised to investors and specifically linked his former co-workers to the fraud.

DiPascali, who testified under a government cooperation agreement, faces a maximum 125-year prison term when he's sentenced for his self-confessed participation in the scheme. But he could receive less time for his assistance to federal prosecutors.

Defense lawyers characterized DiPascali as a convicted perjurer who would say and do anything to gain leniency. But prosecutors argued that DiPascali would face additional criminal charges and prison time if he lied during his testimony.