Fairfield Greenwich Group, a so-called feeder fund that steered billions of dollars into Bernard Madoff’s fraudulent Ponzi scheme, was charged with fraud Wednesday by Massachusetts authorities.

Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin, the state’s top securities regulator, said in a statement that Fairfield Greenwich misrepresented to Massachusetts investors its lack of knowledge of Madoff’s operations.

Fairfield Greenwich’s Sentry Funds placed 95% if its assets totaling more than $7 billion with Madoff, according to Galvin.

In a 110-page administrative complaint, Galvin’s office charges in detail how Fairfield Greenwich officials routinely neglected their fiduciary responsibilities to their investors by never pressing Madoff for answers to numerous concerns raised over the years related to Madoff’s business methods.

Instead, Fairfield Greenwich officials essentially gleaned enough information from Madoff to fend off any concerns raised by their clients, according to the complaint.

Meanwhile, Fairfield Greenwich’s marketing materials boasted of the firm’s due diligence, especially with regard to Madoff, the complaint notes.

“These facts raise the question as to whether Fairfield was, in fact, acting as a fiduciary on behalf of its clients, or whether it was essentially acting as an external marketing arm of Madoff Investments,” the complaint reads. “Instead of truly attempting to discern whether Madoff’s operation was legitimate, Fairfield time and time again sought out just enough information to be able to come up with something to say to its clients to give them comfort with respect to the legitimacy of Madoff’s operations. As long as its clients were comfortable with Madoff, the management and performance fees kept rolling in,” it continues.

A spokesman for Fairfield Greenwich described the complaint’s allegations as “false and misleading.” In a statement e-mailed to FOXBusiness.com Wednesday afternoon, the spokesman said Fairfield had “conducted vigorous and robust monitoring on an ongoing basis of the Madoff investments,” which was “consistent with the representations made to investors in the Sentry funds.”

Galvin is seeking restitution to Massachusetts investors both for losses incurred by Fairfield Greenwich, as well as fees paid to the firm.

“Investment advisers have a fiduciary responsibility to their clients under law,” Galvin said in the statement. “The allegations against Fairfield in this complaint outline a total disregard for such responsibility which helped the Madoff scheme to stay afloat for so long.”

Fairfield earned a fee of 1% of assets under management for what all money invested in Sentry funds, plus a 20% performance fee based on the funds’ returns, according to Galvin’s statement.

Galvin said the bulk of Fairfield’s performance fees came from its investments with Madoff

The Massachusetts complaint claims Madoff coached Fairfield officials in 2005 on how to respond to questions from Securities and Exchange Commission investigators who were looking into concern raised by a Boston-based investigator named Harry Markopolos.

Markopolos told a Congressional committee earlier this year that for nearly a decade he repeatedly contacted the SEC with specific allegations that Madoff was operating a Ponzi scheme.

Galvin’s complaint specifically cites an alleged December 2005 conversation between Madoff and Fairfield’s chief operating officer and chief risk officer which, according to Galvin, shows that Fairfield officials “clearly knew” that Madoff was trying to avoid “deeper scrutiny” of his operations.

The SEC followed up on Markopolos’ allegations, but no action was taken. Indeed, according to Galvin’s complaint, the SEC cited conversations with Fairfield Greenwich officials in their findings that Madoff was on the level.

In addition, the complaint states that Fairfield Greenwich officials were aware last fall that some clients were redeeming their money due to concerns with Madoff, and that those same officials worked to calm those fears in order to hold onto the client funds.

Moreover, last December, when Madoff’s scheme was unraveling, Fairfield Greewich “pumped” $14.8 million into Madoff’s operation in a “desperate” effort to keep it afloat.

According to the complaint, Fairfield officials were “blinded by the fees they were earning, did not engage in meaningful due diligence and turned a blind eye to any fact that would have burst their lucrative bubble.”

Madoff pled guilty last month to 11 felony counts after admitting to running probably the largest investment fraud in history. He is in jail awaiting sentencing and is very likely to spend the rest of his life behind bars.