US prosecutors challenge expert witness for Madoff ex-aide's defense

According to a Bloomberg report, prosecutors filed a petition to bar former Bernard Madoff executive Daniel Bonventre from hiring an expert on corporate psychopaths to aid his defense. Bonventre, who was former operations chief of the broker-deal unit of Madoff and was allegedly a co-conspirator of the $17 billion Ponzi scheme, wanted to hire Paul Babiak to solidify the former's claim that he was relentlessly manipulated by Madoff, a defense lawyer said.

Assistant US Attorney Matthew Schwartz said in a Manhattan federal court filing that Babiak should not be allowed to testify for Bonventre as he had never met Madoff nor diagnosed him. Schwartz also wrote, "(Babiak can't) reliably diagnose Mr. Madoff as a psychopath and testify about his skills in manipulating those around him on the basis of news reports and YouTube videos."

Madoff is currently spending the first few of his 150-year sentence in a North carolina prison after pleading guilty to fraud charges in 2009. Bloomberg said the trial of Bonventre and four others is the first stemming from the Ponzi scheme scandal. Prosecutors started presenting testimonies by Madoff's accomplices and his former clerical staff and industry experts in October, and that the defendants are reportedly beginning to mount their cases as early as today.

According to a letter by Andrew Frisch, Bonventre's lawyer, "(Babiak would testify that) the psychopath sees people as objects, each presenting him with an opportunity to contrive a tailored presentation designed to lure the object into serving the psychopath's needs."

Bloomberg said prosecutors are seeking to narrow the case of the defendants by attempting to discredit the qualifications of its proposed witnesses this week via letters to court. US District Judge Laura Taylor Swain is said to be the judge who will decide on whether Babiak will be allowed to testify for Bonventre.

In the same letter, Schwartz wrote to Swain that claims about Madoff's ability to lie does not say anything on whether Bonventre was fooled or lied to, and that testimony about the defendant's vulnerability was inappropriate.

Tags

Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, Bernard Madoff, Madoff Ponzi Scheme, Daniel Bonventre

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