Former Madoff Computer Programmer Sentenced To 2 1/2 Years In Prison
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- An ex-computer programmer for imprisoned financial swindler Bernard Madoff has been sentenced in New York to 2 1/2 years in prison for his role in a multibillion-dollar fraud.
George Perez was sentenced Wednesday by federal Judge Laura Taylor Swain. He was the fourth of five ex-Madoff workers to be sentenced.
The leniency shown by the judge in each sentencing led a prosecutor Wednesday to complain the prison terms would be cited in the future to win leniency for white collar defendants in other frauds.
The prosecutor, Matthew Schwartz, said a sentence of two to three years in prison for Perez would be too lenient to be just.
Madoff is serving a 150-year prison term after the fraud cost investors nearly $20 billion over four decades.
On Monday, Swain sentenced Madoff's ex-director of operations for investments, Daniel Bonventre, to 10 years behind bars. A day later, Madoff's former secretary, Annette Bongiorno, was sentenced to six years in prison, and another computer programmer, Jerome O'Hara, to 2 1/2 years.
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