Madoff Piggy Bank New Yorker Palmer Murphy created the hot seller on eBay with the slogan: “Will take your money, but not return it.
” (Zandy Mangold)
Bernie Madoff Hot Sauce Upper East Side painter and illustrator Alex Gardega created the logo for the $10 condiment. (jonathan baskin)
“Too Good To Be True: The Rise and Fall of Bernie Madoff”One of 294 Madoff-inspi red books for sale on Amazon.com (VIA BLOOMBERG)
It’s been two years since Bernie Madoff confessed to the world’s largest Ponzi scheme — and after a frenzied weeklong barrage of lawsuits and settlements, Irving Picard, the trustee charged with collecting the scamster’s far-flung assets for the 2,355 approved claimants, has collected just over 14 percent of the $21.2 billion apparently lost in the scam.
And while the monster Madoff rots in prison, serving a 150-year sentence, it could be years before victims of the scam — who range from grandmas to movie stars like Kevin Bacon — know exactly how much money they will recover.
That’s because the process for unwinding the scam — originally pegged at $65 billion, including fake profits — and figuring out who gets what back, is just getting started.
Tonight is the deadline for Picard to file lawsuits seeking ill-gotten gains from friends, family, associates and, yes, even investors.
The recent flurry of lawsuits has pumped the total amount Picard’s seeking to a whopping $55 billion, up from just $15.5 billion at the end of September.
Yesterday, Picard unveiled
his largest lawsuit to date — a claim to $19.6 billion from Bank Medici, an Austrian bank, and its founder Sonja Kohn. Picard called Kohn a “criminal soul mate” of Madoff. He’s seeking treble damages, under a civil racketeering claim, for a total of
$58.8 billion.
Notable suits vs. friends, family & other investors: $9.2B
PENDING:
1 Jeffrey Picower (deceased), $7.2B
2 Stanley Chais (deceased), $1.1B
3 Peter, Mark, Andrew and Shana Madoff, pending, $200M
4 Annette Bongiorno and other Madoff associates, pending, $70M
5 Ruth Madoff, $45M
6 Sondra Wiener (nee Madoff), unknown
RECOVERED:
1 Carl Shapiro, $512M
2 Jewish women’s charity Hadassah, $45M
3 Robert Jaffe, $38M
Feeder Funds sued by Picard
$3.5B Fairfield Greenwich funds
$1.1B Harley International
$900M Avellino & Bienes
$557M J. Ezra Merkin’s funds
$395M Kingate Global
$180M Vizcaya and Gibraltar funds
$100M Maxam Fund Group
$63M Thybo funds
$6.8BTOTAL
Banks sued by Picard
$19.6B*Bank Medici
$9BHSBC
$6.4BJPMorgan
$2.5BUBS
$425MCitigroup
$575MOther banks and financial institutions
$38.5BTOTAL