Lawyer says Madoff cooperating with U.S. probes

By Grant McCool and Martha Graybow

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bernard Madoff is cooperating with government investigations into his alleged $50 billion (£33.5 billion) fraud, one of his lawyers said on Tuesday, as prosecutors sought to revoke his bail and jail him.

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that another lawyer for Madoff, Ira Sorkin, disavowed his earlier statements that Madoff was cooperating with prosecutors and the FBI in their investigations.

"We're cooperating with the government investigations," Madoff lawyer Daniel Horwitz told Reuters. "What we have been saying consistently is that we are cooperating with the government." Horwitz declined to provide further details.

U.S. prosecutors took a stronger stance towards Madoff on Monday, arguing that he was a flight risk and that he had mailed jewellery, watches and other personal property to friends and family in violation of his bail conditions.

Horwitz and Sorkin are representing Madoff in criminal and civil investigations stemming from accusations in court documents by the government that the 70-year-old money manager had confessed to "a giant Ponzi scheme" with losses of $50 billion.

Sorkin told a judge in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Monday that Madoff and his wife had already returned some of the items and did not violate the bail terms. Some of the items were sent to Madoff's two sons, who turned them over to the government, Sorkin said.

Madoff, a former chairman of the NASDAQ stock market, is under house arrest in his $7 million Manhattan apartment while U.S. Magistrate Ronald Ellis considers the government's request to jail him.

Madoff has been charged with one count of securities fraud, but has yet to be formally indicted by a grand jury. Bail is routinely granted in white-collar crime cases ahead of a trial unless the government can argue there is a risk of flight.