file photo of Bernie Madoff
MAY 20, 2015 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2015, 1:19 PM
BY HUGH R. MORLEY
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Eric Lipkin was five years old when he met Bernie Madoff at his financial services firm.
He was a student and a track star at Paramus High School when he started doing company clerical work for his father, Irwin, who worked for Madoff. And by the time Eric Lipkin joined the company himself, right out of high school in 1991, he had developed a “reverence” for Madoff.
So said Lipkin’s attorney in U.S. District Court in Manhattan Wednesday, where he sought to explain why his client, a Ridgewood resident, participated in Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme, preparing documents that he knew were fraudulent.
“One of the things that made him attractive to Madoff was he was very dependable, and he follows orders,” attorney James Kieran Filan told the court.
Filan offered the explanation at a 90-minute hearing, before a federal judge sentenced Lipkin, 41, to nine months home detention and 200 hours of community service for is role in the $17 billion scheme, to which he pleaded guilty in 2011. Lipkin also agreed in court to forfeit $1.4 million.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain said she was swayed to give a much lighter sentence than federal guidelines suggested because of Lipkin’s role, as described by prosecutors, in helping the government build a case against others involved in the Madoff scheme, and the help he gave the trustee pursuing funds from Madoff’s firm, Bernard L, Madoff Securities, to compensate the scheme’s victims. Lipkin faced a maximum sentence of 70 years in prison.
On Tuesday, former Madoff controller Enrica Cotellessa-Pitz, who has also cooperated with prosecutors, received a similar sentence.
“There is no question that Mr. Lipkin engaged in serious, gravely wrongful conduct, and did so knowingly in material respects,” Swain said, adding that the scheme “shattered dreams and changed lives forever.”
Still, she added, “he has been humbled by what has happened and the court is convinced that his remorse is genuine.”
