Victims of infamous Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff are receiving their last funds — bringing the whole quantity doled out by a compensation fund to over $4.3 billion, the feds introduced Monday.
The Madoff Sufferer Fund started distributing its tenth and final fee of $131.4 million to greater than 23,000 victims worldwide, based on the Manhattan US Legal professional’s workplace.
The Division of Justice arrange the fund over a decade in the past to repay folks swindled by Madoff — who died behind bars in 2021 whereas serving out a 150-year sentence.
In complete, 40,930 of Madoff’s victims from 127 counties have recouped over $4.3 billion in compensation — or 93.71% of their losses, the feds stated.
Madoff’s large ripoff — believed to be the most important inventory fraud in historical past — got here to gentle roughly 16 years in the past throughout the monetary disaster of the late 2000s.
The reviled scammer pleaded responsible to 11 monetary crimes — together with fraud, money-laundering and perjury — in 2009 for swindling traders, family and friends via the crooked wealth administration firm he based in 1960.
Beginning across the Nineties, the fraudster collected cash from others via his firm Bernie L. Madoff Funding Securities with the promise he’d make investments it — however then he by no means did, he admitted at his sentencing.
His victims included charities and retirees who entrusted their life financial savings to him, in addition to New York College, the Worldwide Olympic Committee and notable figures like former Disney studio chief Jeffrey Katsenberg, legendary Corridor of Famer Sandy Koufax and Hollywood couple Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick.
Madoff’s fraud has been tied to no less than 4 suicides, together with his elder son Mark’s, who hanged himself on Dec. 11, 2010 — the two-year anniversary of his dad’s arrest.
His youthful son Andrew additionally blamed Madoff for the recurrence of the uncommon most cancers, mantle-cell lymphoma, that killed him in 2014.
Madoff was sentenced in June 2009 to a century-and-a-half behind bars.
He and his co-conspirators, together with brother Peter Madoff, had been compelled to fork over the ill-gotten good points as a part of the prosecution by the Manhattan US lawyer’s workplace — funds used to pay again victims, the feds stated.
Moreover, about $2.2 billion of the sufferer compensation funds had been collected from the property of a deceased Madoff investor, Jeffry Picower, and one other $1.7 billion got here as a part of an settlement with JPMorgan Chase Financial institution, based on prosecutors.
“This Workplace has by no means stopped pursuing justice for victims of historical past’s largest Ponzi scheme,” stated Appearing Manhattan US Legal professional Edward Kim in an announcement.
The DOJ “is dedicated to defending and aiding victims of crime, regardless of how lengthy it takes and regardless of how sophisticated the endeavor,” Kim added.
Madoff in 2020 requested for compassionate launch from jail, claiming he solely had months to dwell as a result of he had kidney illness.
However his bid to be freed was denied after some 500 victims wrote letters to a choose saying Madoff ought to die behind bars.
He additionally requested Trump in 2019 to cut back his jail time period, however the request went unanswered.
Madoff died at 82 of kidney illness and hypertension on April 14, 2021 at a federal lockup in North Carolina.
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