(Bloomberg News) Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating Bernard L. Madoff's failed investment firm, will collect $7.2 billion from the estate of philanthropist Jeffry Picower, bringing to $9.8 billion the amount collected for victims.
Investors in Madoff's Ponzi scheme, the largest in U.S. history, claimed losses of principal totaling $20 billion and paper losses -- including fake profits -- of about $65 billion. Picard has filed lawsuits over the past two years seeking the "clawback" of more than $50 billion.
Picower's estate will pay $5 billion to Picard and $2.2 billion to U.S. authorities to resolve claims that he profited from the fraud, according to separate statements today from Picard and the office of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. The settlement, for the amount Picard sought, would be the biggest so far. He had already recovered $2.5 billion.
"They're the getting whole thing?" said Madoff investor Timothy Murray, 58, of Minneapolis. "Wow. That's great. That's wonderful. I'm beginning to think that there's a real possibility that Picard could pay all the claims he approved and there could be extra money."
Picard, a court-appointed trustee, approved 2,232 investor claims for recovery as of Sept. 30 and rejected 11,171 on the ground that the claimants took more from their accounts than they invested. Murray said he and his family invested $12 million over two decades and are among those rejected.