Madoff's office had 'wild' sex, drug parties: Suit

NEW YORK: Convicted Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff presided over an office fueled by sex and drugs, with late night "wild" parties that included topless entertainers, a lawsuit said.

His "affinity for escorts, masseuses, and attractive female employees was well known in the office culture," said the suit filed on late Tuesday.

It said "certain feeders" who brought investment funds to the Madoff scheme were allowed to participate in the activity.

It was filed by California lawyer Joseph Cotchett on behalf of some victims of Madoff's multibillion-dollar Ponzi scam, the biggest fraud in US financial history.

The lawsuit seeks financial damages from more than a dozen companies and individuals associated with Madoff, claiming the groups should have detected Madoff's fraud.



They include JPMorgan Chase and Bank of New York Mellon, which handled some Madoff accounts, and the auditing firm KPMG.

The complaint alleges that the banks and the accounting firm should have detected Madoff's fraud and blown the whistle on it.

The suit's sole plaintiff was Jay Wexler, described as a New York resident who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in Madoff's scam.

At Mandoff's Manhattan office parties were "topless entertainers wearing only G-string underwear serving as waitresses," the suit said.

"A culture of sexual deviance existed in the office" with employees having "late night affairs in exciting places -- such as their boss' sofa -- with whomever they could find," it said.

"Employees described it as a wild, fast-talking, drug-using office culture," said the 272-page lawsuit.

Madoff is serving a 150-year sentence in a North Carolina prison for a multi-billion dollar investment fraud that cheated thousands of people and institutions, including celebrities, charities and leading banks, over several decades.

According to the suit, a "significant" amount of the money stolen from investors went towards these "lavish indulgences as well as other expenses for his employees, family and favorite feeders."

Madoff himself maintained a "list of his favorite attractive female masseuses in his personal telephone book," the suit said.

It also said that Madoff's office was known as the "North Pole" because cocaine flowed so freely.

"Drug use in the office was described as rampant and likened the office to the 'North Pole' in reference to the cocaine use," the lawsuit said.

As far back as 1975, it claimed, Madoff had put two people on his payroll who ensured that cocaine was never missing from the offices of Madoff Securities.

Lawyer Cotchett had met with Madoff last summer shortly after he arrived at a federal prison in North Carolina.

Just before his arrest in December last year, Madoff sent clients a statement claiming his fund was worth about 64.8 billion dollars, although investors are still trying to determine what happened to the money.