$770 Million Being Distributed Among Madoff Victims
Image by Wikimedia Commons
(JTA) — The U.S. Department of Justice began distributing $772.5 million in recovered funds to some 24,000 victims of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.
The sum, which is being returned eight years after the former stockbroker and investment adviser pleaded guilty to committing one of the largest fraud schemes in U.S. history, is the largest restoration of forfeited property in the United States, according to Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
“We have recovered billions of dollars from third parties – not Mr. Madoff – and are now returning that money to tens of thousands of victims,” Rosenstein said in a statement issued Thursday.
The $772.5 million is only a fraction of the more than $4 billion in assets that were recovered for the victims in total, according to the statement.
Madoff, a Jewish New Yorker, swindled billions of dollars from tens of thousands of people from the early 1970s until his 2008 arrest. Many prominent nonprofits also suffered big losses, with Yeshiva University taking a $140 million hit, Hadassah $90 million and the foundation of Elie Wiesel losing $15 million.
In 2009, Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 federal felonies and was sentenced to 150 years in prison. He was also ordered to forfeit nearly $171 billion, according to CNBC.
Of the $4 billion that will be distributed to victims of the scheme, more than half came from the estate of Jeffry Picower, a Madoff investor who reportedly profited more than Madoff from the Ponzi scheme and was later sued by Madoff investors.
Another $1.7 billion was collected as part of an agreement with JPMorgan Chase Bank, according to the Justice Department’s release. JPMorgan Chase was fined under the Bank Secrecy Act, which requires banks to notify law enforcement of suspicious activity, CNBC reported.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
