NEW YORK AP – An accountant whose firm is being scrutinized for its work with reputed Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff has been financially ruined by the scandal, and is now gravely ill with cancer, according to friends and relatives.

Jerome Horowitz, 80, of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., audited Madoff’s books for many years before retiring and handing the account over to his son-in-law in the early to mid-1990s.