$231M Set Aside for Madoff Claims
Wednesday, Jul 1, 2009 | Updated 1:45 PM EDT
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Madoff may not be the only one who ends up behind bars.
A group funded by the securities industry has set aside $231 million to cover claims by Bernard Madoff's burned investors.
Court appointed trustee Irving H. Picard and the Securities Investor Protection Corporation made the announcement today.
The court has allowed 543 claims, totaling $2.972 billion, submitted by investors of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC.
Madoff has been sentenced to 150 years in prison. He pleaded guilty in March to charges that his secretive investment advisory business was a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that wiped out thousands of investors and ruined charities.
Federal authorities are pressing a probe of 10 associates of Bernard Madoff despite a sentence that means the mastermind of one of the biggest financial frauds in history will spend the rest of his days behind bars.
A person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, wouldn't detail potential charges or say whether the 10 would include Madoff's family or former employees. So far, only Madoff and an accountant accused of failing to make basic auditing checks have been criminally charged in the multibillion-dollar hoax.
"This is the end of the beginning," the source told The New York Post.
