Mets Owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz will be forced to "pay no more than $386 million to resolve claims" by Bernie Madoff trustee Irving Picard, according to Larry Neumeister of the AP. The figure "slices more than $600 million off the $1 billion award requested" by Picard in a lawsuit that accused the Mets owners of "turning a blind eye to the fraud perpetrated by" Madoff. U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff "tossed out most of the claims in a decision issued Tuesday." Rakoff said that the $386M "consists of $83.3 million in fictitious profits accumulated by the Mets' owners in the two years before a bankruptcy court filing occurred." It also "includes more than $300 million in principal that Picard maintains the Mets received during the two-year period" (AP, 9/28). David Sheehan, Picard's attorney, said that the ruling would require his client "to delay an initial cash payment to eligible victims, scheduled for later this week, until he can determine the ruling's impact on the amounts owed to other victims of the epic fraud." Sheehan's "warnings underscored how potentially damaging the Mets ruling could be for the trustee's broader effort to recover cash from all of the so-called net winners in this case" (N.Y. TIMES, 9/29). Sheehan told Rakoff in court yesterday that he would "be asking the judge to recommend, or certify, that an appeals court review some crucial legal issues in Rakoff's decision" (NEWSDAY, 9/29).
