A former Bernard Madoff trader who helped create fake securities data to trick customers avoided a prison sentence, the third ex-worker to do so after assisting in the prosecution of former colleagues.
David Kugel, who worked in the brokerage operation of Madoff’s New York-based firm for almost four decades, was sentenced to time served. He had faced as long as 85 years behind bars for his role in the con man’s $17.5 billion Ponzi scheme.
He was sentenced Wednesday in Manhattan by U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain, who oversaw the only trial tied to the fraud. A jury convicted five of Madoff’s former top aides after a government case that relied in part on Kugel’s testimony.