|
See All Dates |
| |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
David G. Friehling is an accountant in New York, arrested and charged in March 2009 for his role in the Madoff investment scandal.[1] Contents [hide] 1 Early life 2 Friehling & Horowitz as Madoff's auditors 3 See also 4 References 5 External links // Early life Friehling was born in Sullivan County, north of New Friehling & Horowitz as Madoff's auditors For many years, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC books were audited by Friehling & Horowitz, a little-known accounting office in New York's northern suburbs. The firm constituted one partner then in his late 70s who lives in Florida, a secretary, and one active accountant. Some potential investors in Madoff's fund balked when they learned that an unknown outfit with little or no staff was responsible for auditing a multi-billion-dollar operation.[citation needed] Jerome Horowitz, 80, of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, audited Madoff's books for many years before retiring and handing the account over to his son-in-law, Friehling, in the early 1990s. The accounting firm has informed the AICPA in writing for 15 years that it does not conduct audits.[3] An investigation into Friehling by Rockland County, New York district attorney Thomas Zugibe was stopped in deferral to the investigation by the US Attorney's office On March 18, 2009, Friehling was charged with securities fraud, aiding and abetting investment adviser fraud, and four counts of filing false audit reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission, though he was not charged for knowing about the fraud. He has not yet entered a plea[1] and faces up to 105 years in prison on all of the charges.[5][6][7] The SEC also separately brought civil charges against Friehling and his firm.[7] Madoff's firm paid Friehling between $12,000 and $14,500 a month for his services between 2004 and 2007.[6] Although required, Friehling was not registered with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which was created under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 to help detect fraud. Nor was the firm "peer reviewed," in which auditors check out one another for quality control. According to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), Friehling was enrolled in their peer-review program, but was not required to participate because he advised the group that he had not conducted audits for 15 years.[8][3] See also Bernard Madoff References ^ a b Chung, Joanna (2009-03-22), "Madoff investigation is far form over", Financial Times, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fc66f50a-1719-11de-9a72-0000779fd2ac.html, retrieved on 2009-03-22 ^ http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090322/NEWS/903220321 | ||||
|