New York – The court-appointed trustee liquidating Bernard Madoff’s firm said he began distributing $464 million to the imprisoned swindler’s former customers on Friday, boosting their recovery to roughly $12.2 billion.
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Irving Picard, the trustee, said the payout means all former customers of Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC who were eligible to recoup up to $1.49 million for their losses will have been repaid in full.
The trustee said $13.36 billion, or 76 percent, of the roughly $17.5 billion that customers lost in Madoff’s fraud has been amassed through recoveries or agreements to recover.
Some is being held back because of pending litigation. The fraud was uncovered in December 2008, when Madoff was arrested.
Other Madoff victims including schools, charities and pension plans, as well as customers, have already been allocated $1.97 billion from a separate $4 billion compensation fund set up by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Madoff, 80, is serving a 150-year prison term in a medium security North Carolina prison.
He pleaded guilty in March 2009 to crimes that his sentencing judge called “extraordinarily evil.”
Why isn’t Puerto Rico being held liable for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bonds they sold to us and then stopped payment on them? Same scheme.
Well, no it is not the same. Puerto Rico went bankrupt. They made a mistake. Bernie did not make a mistake. He lied.
What is the point keeping Madoff in prison, for the rest of his days? What more harm could he do if he is released? He should be freed, now. In lieu of the fact that hundreds of drug dealers (who did far more harm to the public), have been released from federal prison, Madoff should be released now.
Incidentally, if some of those investors did not do their homework, and fell victim to their own greed, whose fault is that? In any event, nearly all of them were repaid for their losses. FREE MADOFF NOW!