Ex-Madoff Worker Refuses to Snitch – No-Snitch Rule Applies to the Rich

I wonder curious reporters don’t make a big deal when white collar criminals refuse to snitch on fellow criminal associates. The media act as if only African American youth excercise their right to remain silent. A former employee of one of the biggest criminals of the last decade, Ponzi scheme running Bernard L. Madoff, refuses to cooperate with the government in its investigation of Madoff.

It looks like Madoff’s employees are experiencing a little “SnitchCraft.” This is very similar to the story and one of the issues I addressed in my novel SnitchCraft. According to this article, prosecutors are threatening to seize the assets of Madoff’s ex-worker including funds paid to his attorney’s escrow account because he will not snitch.

The former Madoff aide made her request for bail yesterday while another ex-Madoff worker, Daniel Bonventre, asked a judge to dismiss criminal charges against him. Bonventre said in court papers that prosecutors are interfering with his constitutional right to counsel by threatening to seize his assets — including funds paid to his attorney’s escrow account — because he wouldn’t cooperate with the government in its investigation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC.

Prosecutors’ “overriding objective” is “to pressure Mr. Madoff’s former employees to help the government build a case against one or more of the people closest to Mr. Madoff and the principal benefactors of his fraud: longstanding friends who invested extraordinary sums with him, as well as family members who worked with him at BLMIS, including his wife, brother, niece, nephew and two sons,” Bonventre’s lawyer, Andrew Frisch, wrote in a court filing yesterday. Read the full story here.