Ponzi Victims Seek To Question Madoff

Four people claiming they lost their life savings to Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme asked a Delaware court to order the jailed 76-year-old investment manager to submit to formal questioning so that his testimony may be preserved before he dies. 

Madoff’s account of the events that transpired may help his victims recover proceeds from affiliates of a “primary beneficiary” of the fraud, including the late Jeffry Picower.    

In January 2011, a bankruptcy judge approved a $7.2 billion settlement between the trustee winding down the firm and the estate of Picower.  The trustee, Irving Picard, sued Picower in May 2009, claiming he withdrew $7.2 billion more than he invested with the firm and should have been aware that Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme.  Picower died in 2009. 

Investors plan to file a federal lawsuit to pursue their losses after they gather testimony about the Madoff-Picower financial relationship.

See Phil Milford and Dawn McCarty, Ponzi Victims Seek to Query Madoff Before It’s Too Late, Bloomberg, Jan. 5, 2014.