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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Five former Bernard Madoff aides have asked a federal judge to throw out their convictions, three weeks after a jury found them guilty of fraud and conspiracy for helping Madoff conceal his multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. Former back-office director Daniel Bonventre, computer programmers George Perez and Jerome O'Hara and portfolio managers Annette Bongiorno and Joann Crupi told U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain that the government's evidence could not support the verdict and that prosecutors had delivered inappropriate and inflammatory closing arguments. "While we generally have great faith in the jury system, we earnestly believe that this is one of those rare cases where the jury's verdict reflects a grave miscarriage of justice," wrote Perez's lawyer, Larry Krantz, in a motion filed on Tuesday. Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now The defendants, found guilty after one of the longest white-collar trials in New York history, also asked Swain to order a new trial in the alternative. A spokeswoman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara declined to comment. Prosecutors had accused the five former employees of helping Madoff conceal his massive scheme, which lasted for decades and cost investors an estimated $17 billion in principal. Madoff, 75, is serving a 150-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in March 2009. He has claimed sole responsibility for the fraud. Nine other people have pleaded guilty in connection with the scheme, some of whom appeared as government witnesses at the trial pursuant to plea agreements. There was little dispute that the defendants had engaged in activities such as backdating fake trades and creating falsified documents. But the employees argued at trial that they were unaware at the time that they were doing anything illegal, blinded by Madoff's considerable charm and ability to lie convincingly. The jury, however, found them guilty on every count. The acquittal motions focused heavily on the government's closing arguments, in particular the rebuttal delivered by Assistant U.S. Attorney Randall Jackson that stood as the final word to the jury. The summations, the defense lawyers asserted, misstated the record and improperly characterized the defense as "ridiculous." "It quickly became apparent that the government's summation was not destined to be a traditional summary of evidence, leavened with argument, but was instead to be a slick and highly orchestrated production aimed at lumping the five defendants together in an undifferentiated mass," Crupi's lawyer, Eric Breslin, wrote. Several defense lawyers faulted Jackson for invoking former U.S. District Judge Constance Baker Motley, a civil rights activist and the first African-American chief judge in Manhattan federal court, suggesting it was an attempt to make a racial appeal to the jurors, many of whom were African-American. The defendants also contended that the evidence introduced at trial was not enough to support a guilty verdict, with Breslin claiming the convictions were "based on nothing more than speculation and government wishful thinking." If Swain denies the motions, the defendants are expected to appeal their convictions to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The five defendants are scheduled to be sentenced in July. |
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This article originally appeared on The Motley Fool. If Mark Zuckerberg wasn't planning to give away 99 percent of his family's Facebook shares before he dies, I bet he'd be a trillionaire at some point in his life. For now, though, he'll have to settle for a net worth of $51.7 billion, according to Bloomberg's Billionaire Index. That's up $5.9 billion year to date as of this writing. His wealth increase was driven by his 14 percent stake in Facebook. The stock price increased a solid 13.5 percent so far this year, although it was up more than double that amount at one point this year. Those gains were offset by the sale of some of Zuckerberg's stock to fund the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the vehicle through which Zuck plans to donate 99 percent of his stock. Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now Facebook's revenue and earnings growth didn't slow downThroughout 2016, Facebook consistently posted earnings results that beat analysts' expectations. Over the last four quarters, Facebook grew its revenue 55 percent to $24.7 billion. What's more, its net income grew a whopping 165 percent to $7.5 billion. Those strong results were fueled largely by continued user growth, increases in engagement, and more advertising in Facebook's News Feed and Instagram. Monthly active users increased from 1.55 billion at the end of the third quarter last year to 1.79 billion today. Daily active users increased from 1.01 billion to 1.18 billion. Facebook also provided an update on average user time spent per day across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. Users now spend an average of 50 minutes per day as of the company's first-quarter earnings report. That's up from the 40 minutes per day the company reported in the second quarter of 2014. Additionally, Facebook has managed to display more advertisements in users' News Feeds and Instagram feeds. Total ad impressions increased 50 percent in the third quarter, in line with the first and second quarter. What's more, Facebook has managed modest average ad price increases while increasing its revenue so significantly. Just a little bit of bad newsBut a few pieces of bad news kept Facebook stock from flying too high this year. In February, India's telecom regulator banned Facebook's Free Basics app in the country, saying it violates net neutrality principles. Free Basics allowed users to access select apps (including Facebook) without the data counting against their data caps. The ban was seen as a major blow to Facebook's ambitions in the huge emerging market. Additionally, despite reporting strong results for the third quarter, investors were scared by comments from CFO Dave Wehner saying ad load would have less of a meaningful impact on revenue growth. "With a much smaller contribution from this important factor going forward, we expect to see ad revenue growth rates come down meaningfully," Wehner said on the third-quarter earnings call. The comments sent Facebook shares tumbling from an all-time high of $133.50 before Facebook reported its third-quarter earnings. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative launchesZuckerberg has already started to make good on his plan to donate 99 percent of his wealth to nonprofits over his lifetime. Shareholders approved a complex 3-for-1 stock split in June, which established a new class of shares (class C) that hold no voting power. The new class of shares should enable Zuckerberg to make good on his promise without losing control of his company. In August, Zuckerberg sold $95 million worth of stock—about 0.2 percent of his net worth at the time—to fund investments made by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The CZI's first investment led the Series B funding round for Andela, an Africa-based coding bootcamp and four-year fellowship program for software engineering. It also led a $50 million round of investments for Byju, an app-centric education start-up based in India. In September, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative announced plans to invest at least $3 billion over the next decade toward preventing, curing and managing all diseases by the end of the century. Should Facebook be on your buy list? It's on oursMotley Fool co-founders Tom and David Gardner just revealed their 10 top stock picks for investors to buy right now. Facebook made the list—but there are 9 other stocks you may be overlooking. Click here to get access to the full list! |