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Nearly 5,000 investors were deceived in the fraud by the former NASDAQ chairman, who told them their $20 billion investment had grown to $68 billion by November 2008. Weeks later, he revealed his fraud, confessing that only several hundred million dollars were left.
In his lawsuit, Picard said the Mets' owners received $83.3 million in fictitious profits and $301 million in principal in the two years before a bankruptcy filing was made regarding the Madoff assets.
Rakoff's rulings limiting what Picard can collect have been encouraging to the Mets' co-owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, who have said they were victims of Madoff's fraud. The Mets announced last year that they were considering selling up to 25 percent of the franchise because of "uncertainty" caused by the lawsuit. Despite the upcoming trial, the tension surrounding the team over the Madoff issue seems to have relaxed.
Wilpon said at an appearance in Port St Lucie, Fla., last week that the Mets' owners plan to keep the franchise "for a very long time."
He cited a slashed payroll and an encouraging outlook in the courts.
"When it started, there was a really big number out there and now -- I'm not minimizing -- but it's a different number," Wilpon said.
Madoff is serving a 150-year prison sentence in North Carolina for his multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme.
[Associated Press;
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