Bernard Madoff's longtime auditor is gravely ill with cancer and his family has reportedly lost much of their money from investing in the $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
Madoff's investment firm was audited by a small, three-person firm, Friehling & Horowitz, in New City, N.Y. Madoff's longtime auditor, Jerome Horowitz, retired to Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., and handed over the practice to his son-in-law, David Friehling, in the early 1990s. Many of Horowitz's relatives and friends invested with Madoff and now fear that their savings have been wiped out, or will be seized by the court-appointed trustee.
Horowitz informed his friends last summer that he had incurable cancer and is waiting to go into a hospice, according to the Associated Press. "Jerry has lost everything, and everyone that he ever did a favor for, and most of his family, have lost everything," his friend Neil Friedman told the AP. "We've lost everything too."
Meanwhile, Friehling has put his five-bedroom house in Rockland County, N.Y., up for sale for $995,000. He was subpoenaed last month, but has not been charged with wrongdoing (see
