The planned guilty plea to conspiracy charges by a former controller for imprisoned financier Bernard Madoff has been postponed after he was admitted to a hospital for kidney treatment.

The lawyer for Irwin Lipkin requested the adjournment of the hearing Thursday in New York until his client can recover.

Lipkin was scheduled to plead guilty to charges including a conspiracy to falsify records in a fraud that started in the early 1970s and ran through December 2008.

The charges carry a potential penalty of 10 years in prison. No new date was immediately set for the plea.

Madoff pleaded guilty in 2009 to stealing billions through the fraud and says he acted alone. He’s serving a 150-year prison sentence in Butner, N.C.