Madoff Victim Fund Makes Final Distribution, With 94% of Fraud Losses Recovered

The Justice Department said Monday (Dec. 30) that it recovered nearly 94% of fraud losses for victims of the Ponzi scheme for which Bernard L. Madoff pleaded guilty in 2009.

The agency said this in a Monday press release announcing the Madoff Victim Fund’s 10th and final distribution to victims.

The distribution of $131 million brought the total amount the Madoff Victim Fund has paid to victims of the Madoff scheme to over $4.3 billion, according to the release.

“The unprecedented scope and complexity of the Madoff remission process shows the power of forfeiture to recover assets and to compensate victims — a primary goal of the department’s Asset Forfeiture Program,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney Brent S. Wible, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said in the release.

Led by the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section (MLARS), the final distribution achieved “nearly full recovery” for more than 40,000 victims of Madoff’s crimes, Wible said.

Of the total amount made available to victims, about $2.2 billion was collected as part of a civil forfeiture recovery from the estate of deceased Madoff investor Jeffry Picower; another $1.7 billion was collected as part of a deferred prosecution agreement with JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. and civilly forfeited in a parallel action; and the remainder was collected through a civil forfeiture action against investor Carl Shapiro and his family and from civil and criminal forfeiture actions against Madoff, Peter B. Madoff and their co-conspirators, according to the release.

“As this extraordinary effort demonstrates, this office and MLARS are committed to protecting and assisting victims of crime, no matter how long it takes and no matter how complicated the endeavor,” Acting U.S. Attorney Edward Y. Kim for the Southern District of New York, said in the release.

Bernie Madoff died in April 2021, closing a chapter on one part of his historical fraud and massive manipulation of the financial system, PYMNTS reported at the time.

Madoff, a former Nasdaq chairman turned investment fund manager, oversaw the Ponzi scheme for more than a decade until the financial crisis of 2008 caused a run on investors demanding their money — and learning that the money was never there.