Madoff (left) is now reduced to nighttime walks around a prison track for fun, according to the new filing. -- PHOTO: APNEW YORK - FALLEN financier Bernard Madoff has plunged from his Manhattan penthouse to the lower bunk of a cell he shares with a drug offender at a federal prison, where he eats pizza cooked by a child molester and hangs around with a mob boss and a convicted spy, according to legal papers filed on Tuesday.
The snapshot of Madoff's prison life - and a contrasting picture of a former high-flying life laced with cocaine and salacious parties - are in a legal complaint filed by Burlingame, California-based lawyer Joseph Cotchett, who represents about a dozen victims of Madoff's massive investment Ponzi scheme. Mr Cotchett interviewed Madoff in July at the Butner Federal Correctional Complex near Raleigh, North Carolina.
The lawyer found the mastermind of one of history's largest financial frauds now reduced to nighttime walks around a prison track for fun, according to the new filing, which builds on one investor's existing civil case against various Madoff associates and financial institutions.
When not rubbing elbows with drug and sex offenders, Madoff, 71, who is serving a 150-year sentence after pleading guilty in March to a scheme that authorities say cost thousands of investors at least US$13 billion (S$18 billion), spends time with Carmine Persico, a reputed Colombo crime family boss, and Jonathan Pollard, an American convicted of selling military secrets to Israel more than two decades ago, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit goes to length to compare Madoff's prison existence with his deluxe former life, including photos of his yacht and homes and claims that he ran an office rife with drug use and sexual escapades, featuring topless waitresses and pretty mjasseuses.
According to the allegations - their source isn't specified - Madoff deployed an employee to get drugs from 1975 to 2003, fueling an office so cocaine-laden insiders dubbed it 'the North Pole.' -- AP
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