OAN’s Abril Elfi
1:40 PM – Tuesday, December 12, 2023
The victims of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme were paid their ninth compensation payment.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) said on Monday that the fund established to compensate victims of Bernie Madoff’s infamous Ponzi scheme has begun the process of its ninth payout, giving nearly 25,000 people worldwide access to approximately $159 million in funds that were seized by the government.
The announcement highlighted the ongoing effects of Madoff’s nearly $65 billion securities fraud scam, and it was made 15 years after his arrest and more than two years after his death in prison.
According to a press release by Nicole Argentieri, acting assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s criminal division, the collapse of the largest fraud scheme in history “devastated thousands of lives.”
The DOJ stated that the fund has distributed over $4.2 billion to over 40,800 victims that lost money as a result of the scam as of its most recent distribution.
“Over 90% of victim losses have now been recovered, thanks to the Madoff Victim Fund,” Argentieri.
Madoff deceived financial institutions and a number of well-known celebrities for decades.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams stated that among them were pension funds and charitable organizations that managed assets on behalf of individuals who were “living paycheck to paycheck and depending on their pension accounts for their retirement.”
In March 2009, Madoff acknowledged that he had operated his investment advisory firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, as a massive Ponzi scheme, taking billions of dollars from his clients.
He was given a 150-year prison term after entering a guilty plea to 11 federal felonies.
Through a civil forfeiture recovery from the estate of Jeffrey Picower, the late Madoff investor and scheme’s largest beneficiary, the victims fund has amassed roughly $2.2 billion.
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