Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/madoff-accountant-pleads-guilty-in-federal-court Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript The consequences of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme continue to trickle down as his accountant pleaded guilty to criminal charges. Judy Woodruff reports. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JIM LEHRER: Next tonight: the latest on the fallout from the Madoff affair.Judy Woodruff has that story. JUDY WOODRUFF: Bernard Madoff is now behind bars, but the consequences of his giant Ponzi scheme are far from over. Today, his longtime accountant, David Friehling, pleaded guilty in federal court to nine criminal charges stemming from his role in producing audits that helped conceal the scheme.Tens of billions of dollars were lost by thousands of victims who were defrauded. Efforts to recover any of the money are going slowly.Diana Henriques is a senior financial writer at The New York Times who has been covering the story, and she was back in the courtroom this morning.Diana, good to have you with us again.First of all, tell us who this man David Friehling is. Is that the right pronunciation? And tell us what his…. DIANA HENRIQUES, The New York Times: That is… JUDY WOODRUFF: … and his role. DIANA HENRIQUES: That is correct.His role was to essentially create or rubber-stamp the — the financial statements that Madoff filed for decades with the Securities and Exchange Commission and occasionally provided to institutional investors.He was supposed to be the independent certified accountant. That was what the world thought he was. In fact, he wasn't independent, and he wasn't thoroughly or even barely checking any of the figures that Madoff gave him. JUDY WOODRUFF: So, what was he pleading guilty to today? DIANA HENRIQUES: Well, he was pleading guilty to a complicated set of charges that involved both being engaged in a fraud, namely, the fraud of creating what looked like a genuine audit, but wasn't, but also aiding and abetting the fraud of creating those.He insisted in court, Judy, that he never knew Bernie Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme. He admitted that he was deliberately not producing legitimate audits. He admitted that he did that for years. But he insisted he did not know that, by doing that, he was enabling this Ponzi scheme to continue and to — and to escape regulatory attention.