Bernard Madoff’s account statements were full of discrepancies that could be found by comparing the purported trades to published data, a forensic accountant told jurors in the trial of five of the con man’s former employees, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The majority of securities trades on the customer statements exceeded actual market volume for the indicated day or had prices outside the reported range of highs and lows, Bruce Dubinsky, a government witness who analyzed the fraud in 2011, testified today in federal court in Manhattan. In other cases, trades would “magically” move from original statements to other versions of the same document, Dubinsky said. “Things would appear and disappear — it was smoke and mirrors with account statements.” Dubinsky’s commissioned report on the fraud is being used in civil lawsuits by Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating the defunct company to help repay victims. The report will help the 12-member jury understand exactly how Madoff’s company operated the “world’s biggest Ponzi scheme,” Dubinsky said.
