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A former manager for a nonprofit that oversaw Newark, New Jersey’s water supply was sentenced to eight years in prison for taking kickbacks uncovered by U.S. prosecutors investigating the bankrupt entity’s activities, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Donald Bernard Sr. was a consultant and manager of special projects at the Newark Watershed Conservation and Development Corp. He admitted last year in federal court that he took $956,948 for himself and his boss in exchange for helping award work to contractors. He was sentenced yesterday in federal court in Newark. Bernard and Linda Watkins Brashear, the former executive director who also pleaded guilty, solicited payments from contractors. A 2015 report by the state comptroller’s office said that from 2008 to 2011, the commission "recklessly and improperly spent millions of dollars of public funds with little or no oversight” by its board or the city. The nonprofit, which got almost $10 million a year to manage the city’s 35,000-acre watershed, reservoirs and water-treatment plant, filed for bankruptcy in January 2015.

The trustee recouping money for Bernard Madoff's victims has reached more than $23 million of settlements with the estates of the swindler's late sons and related defendants, ending more than eight years of litigation, Reuters reported yesterday. According to a court filing yesterday, the settlement will strip the estates of Andrew and Mark Madoff of "all assets, cash, and other proceeds" of their father's fraud, leaving them with a respective $2 million and $1.75 million. The estates also agreed to withdraw roughly $99.5 million of claims against the bankruptcy estate of the former Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, the filing shows. Yesterday’s settlement resolves some the highest-profile cases remaining in trustee Irving Picard’s efforts to compensate former Madoff customers whom he estimates lost $17.5 billion. He has recovered $11.6 billion, or about two-thirds of that sum. Read more.

For a further analysis of commercial fraud, make sure to pick up a copy of ABI’s Fraud and Forensics: Piercing Through the Deception in a Commercial Fraud Case. 

The U.S. Justice Department’s $4 billion fund for victims of Bernard Madoff’s epic Ponzi scheme is getting closer to making its first payout, more than four years after it was set up, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. The administrator of the Madoff Victim Fund, Richard Breeden, said in an update on his website that the Justice Department in early June had approved more than 35,000 petitions claiming total losses of more than $6.5 billion. The first round of checks should go out sometime this year, he said. “Approved petitioners should expect to receive notification of these decisions in the coming weeks,” he said.

The bosses of Wall Street banks Goldman Sachs  and Citigroup are the latest executives to fall victim to an email prankster who has also managed to connect with the head of Barclays and the governor of the Bank of England, Reuters reported. While neither Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein nor his Citi counterpart Michael Corbat revealed any sensitive information, the exchanges will raise questions about the way banks' computer systems handle emails to addresses outside their companies. Blankfein was drawn into the simple hoax when he replied to an email purporting to be from his company's president and co-chief operating officer, Harvey Schwartz, congratulating him on a tweet that Blankfein wrote last week on a trip to China about the country's impressive infrastructure.

Federal officials say a former Connecticut attorney who had a bankruptcy practice has pleaded guilty to embezzling millions from clients, the Associated Press reported today. The U.S. Attorney's office says 70-year-old Peter Ressler pleaded guilty yesterday to wire fraud and other charges. He faces up to 35 years in prison when he's sentenced in September. Authorities say Ressler misappropriated at least $3.4 million from clients at his New Haven-based practice and used the money for personal and family living expenses. Authorities say Ressler took retainers from at least 30 clients, telling them he would hold the funds in a trust until he provided legal services but instead spending the money for other expenses. Ressler resigned from the Connecticut bar in March 2016, and was arrested a month later.