“I’m not going to comment about who was the beneficiary,” he said. “They are no longer trying to claw back."
Amanda Remus, a spokeswoman for Picard, declined to comment on the case.
Lawyer Sued
Zabel, an attorney for trusts and estates with Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP in New York, was named in the suit for his role as trustee. Zabel also represented the estate of Jeffry Picower, a longtime Madoff customer whose widow agreed to forfeit $7.2 billion that the investor got from the scam.
Picower, his family and related entities deposited $619.4 million with Madoff beginning in the 1970s and eventually took out $7.8 billion -- the vast majority of which was fake profit from securities trades that never took place. Picard sued Picower in May 2009 and later that year the investor had a heart attack and drowned in his swimming pool in Palm Beach, Florida.
Zabel didn’t respond to a phone call requesting comment.
Fundraising Goal
After his appointment by Trump, Mnuchin, a registered Republican, said the campaign would sign a joint fundraising agreement with the Republican National Committee, planning to raise more than $1 billion between Trump’s campaign and the party.
Mnuchin started his career in the early 1980s as a trainee at Salomon Brothers. He went on to spend 17 years at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., becoming head of the mortgage department before becoming the investment bank’s chief information officer in 1999. Mnuchin left Goldman Sachs in 2002 and two years later founded Dune Capital.
The case is Picard v. The estate of Elaine Cooper, 10-05167, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan).