Madoff's ex-finance chief released on bail

NEW YORK: The former finance chief for jailed financier Bernard Madoff was released on USD 10 million bail today, 10 months after he admitted his role in an epic fraud that cost thousands of investors billions of dollars.

Frank DiPascali, 53, left US District Court in Manhattan without speaking to reporters after meeting the terms of a bail package that a judge had set in February.

DiPascali pleaded guilty in August to helping with Madoff's multi-decade Ponzi scheme until it collapsed in late 2008, when Madoff revealed to his sons that his private investment business was a fraud and they notified the FBI.

DiPascali walked in front of his lawyer Marc Mukasey as he left the courthouse. Mukasey has said DiPascali has provided substantial information to the government that contributed to the arrests of two computer programmers for the firm and Madoff's longtime auditor.

The 72-year-old Madoff is serving a 150-year prison term after admitting that his secretive investment advisory service at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities never bought any securities. Instead, he used new investments to pay returns to existing clients.