SOX Solutions is the premiere service provider for SOX compliance, risk management & internal audit advisory services, and is the leading firm specializing on the unique issues of Sarbanes-Oxley act of 2002 since the laws inception.
David Friehling, 49, was arrested last week (Wed. March 19th) for assisting Madoff in his scandal of defrauding over $50 Billion from approximately 4,800 investors. Here’s the load down. David worked out of a tiny office (13 by 18 foot office) located in Rockland County, New York. He’s a Cornell Alum so you know he’s not stupid just really smart & unfortunately greedy. Friehling is the first person to be arrested since the Madoff scandal broke three months ago. David’s arrest is the first of a series that more is sure to come. We now know David pulled down at least $5.5 Million from some of Madoff’s investment accounts. David was able to do this by first replacing Madoff’s name with Madoff’s wife’s name then later David put his own name on some of these investment accounts. Not to mention his auditing and consulting fees ranged from $12K to $14K/month. David’s partner, Jerome Horowitz, died last week from cancer. So now David is the only one left at the firm to prosecute. I’m curious if any of his attorney’s will be arrested, as they have some accountability of assisting Madoff in keeping his secrets. I would love to hear your thoughts on what should happen to Madoff’s CPA. Should he rot in jail for years and years?
Watching SNL over the weekend I couldn’t help but laugh so loud seeing the skit about the “transformation” of Barack to the “Rock”. The best sceen in that skit was the Rock slamming the phone when a rep of AIG asked for more bail out money. I still have yet to see some full disclosure on the accountability of the use of our tax dollars. I realize that there are departments in our government that do internal audit functions and some external auditors that “after-the-fact” will evaluate how our money was used. My concern is that once the money flood gates are open, the on-going monitoring of funds will never catch up to the actual use of our tax dollars. Now GM is failing even when they were given bail out money and want even more. When do we say ENOUGH!
As I watched the grilling of the SEC representatives by Mr. Ackerman I felt that finally the SEC was getting a wake up call and wondered what was the point of having all these new regulations from Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (”SOX”), if our regulators wouldn’t respond to whistleblower allegations. Madoff not only took in $50 billion from mainly sophisticated investors, but he proved that the SEC whistleblower policies didn’t work and thus, crushed “us” the average investor’s confidence in the SEC’s abilities. So what’s next after this terrible disaster? More regulations?? I hope not. Given our economic crisis we need to really evaluate if adding more regulations is necessary or is it just really enforcing the ones we already have and creating best practices and policies surrounding our rules & regulations. Please weigh in if you feel new regulations should be added or keep the ones we have and really enforce them?
Recent Comments