The trustee unwinding Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme is losing patience with the estates of the con man’s dead sons.
Mark and Andrew Madoff died without resolving a 2009 lawsuit accusing them of squandering $150 million of investors’ money, and recent settlement talks with the estates have hit dead ends. Their ex-wives and other relations cut deals years ago. The brothers, who held senior roles at their father’s now-defunct securities business, had to have known about the fraud, trustee Irving Picard claims as he readies another bid to get the estates’ cash.
"Almost eight years since Madoff’s arrest, the Madoff brothers have not returned a dime from the millions of ill-gotten gains that funded their extravagant lifestyles, desperately clinging to illicit proceeds taken from the victims of the fraud," Picard told the court last month.
The claims against the Madoff clan are part of Picard’s effort to recoup cash for thousands of victims who lost $17.5 billion in principal. So far, he’s recovered $11.1 billion, or almost 64 cents on the dollar, by suing the banks and offshore funds that funneled cash into the scam as well as investors who profited from the fraud by withdrawing more money than they deposited.