Bernie Madoff leaves federal courtroom in New York on March 10, 2009.
Jin Lee | Bloomberg by way of Getty Photos
The fund for victims of Bernie Madoff’s historic Ponzi scheme has begun its ninth payout, distributing about $159 million in government-seized funds to just about 25,000 individuals worldwide, the Division of Justice stated Monday.
The announcement, made 15 years after Madoff’s arrest — and greater than two years after his loss of life in jail — underscored the persevering with impression of Madoff’s almost $65 billion securities fraud rip-off.
The collapse of the world’s largest fraud scheme “devastated hundreds of lives,” stated Nicole Argentieri, appearing assistant legal professional normal of the DOJ’s prison division, in a press launch.
With its newest distribution, the fund has paid out over $4.2 billion to greater than 40,800 victims who misplaced cash from the scheme, the DOJ stated.
The Madoff Sufferer Fund has now helped get better “over 90% of sufferer losses,” Argentieri stated.
The victims of Madoff’s decadeslong fraud included main celebrities and monetary establishments. However additionally they included charities and pension funds that invested cash for individuals “working paycheck-to-paycheck who have been counting on their pension accounts for his or her retirements,” famous U.S. Lawyer Damian Williams.
Madoff in March 2009 admitted stealing billions of {dollars} from his shoppers by working his funding advisory enterprise, Bernard L. Madoff Funding Securities LLC, as a large Ponzi scheme. He pleaded responsible to 11 federal felonies and was sentenced to 150 years in jail.
The victims fund has collected about $2.2 billion by a civil forfeiture restoration from the property of Jeffrey Picower, the late Madoff investor and prime beneficiary of the scheme.
A further $1.7 billion got here in 2014 from JPMorgan Chase, the financial institution Madoff used to run his Ponzi scheme, as a part of a deferred prosecution settlement with the DOJ.
The remaining got here from “a civil forfeiture motion in opposition to investor Carl Shapiro and his household, and from civil and prison forfeiture actions in opposition to Madoff, Peter B. Madoff, and their co-conspirators,” the DOJ stated in Monday’s launch.
