Final Bernie Madoff Fund payouts made

The 10th and final set of payments from a government-created fund to remunerate victims of Bernie Madoff’s infamous financial swindling were announced by the U.S. Department of Justice Monday, bringing the total payouts to more than $4.3 billion.

The department said a $131.4 million final payment of the Madoff Victim Fund will be distributed to over 23,000 of Madoff’s victims worldwide. The fund was created in 2013 to distribute funds forfeited to the federal government to victims of the Madoff fraud.

In 2008, Madoff was exposed for running a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. He enriched himself and his family and selected investors from a fund he founded in 1960 that brought in returns far greater than industry norms.

Madoff’s victims–large and small–included individuals, charities, pension funds and hedge funds.

“This 10th and final distribution, led by the Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section dedicated victim compensation team, achieves the department’s goal of compensating victims” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brent Wible, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, said.

He added that the department has returned over “$4 billion in forfeited assets to more than 40,000 victims of Madoff’s crimes and achieving nearly full recovery for these victims,”

Among those he betrayed were the actors Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, and John Malkovich; baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax; and a charity associated with movie director Steven Spielberg. Owners of the New York Mets, longtime Madoff clients, struggled for years to field a good baseball team because of losses they suffered at his hand.

Madoff’s crimes were revealed to authorities in 2008 by his two sons, who were not part of the scheme. The Jewish community, where Madoff had been a major philanthropist, had numerous members fall victim to his lies.

Madoff’s crimes exposed holes in the SEC, which through incompetence or neglect botched a half-dozen examinations.

In June 2009 Madoff was sentenced to a 150-year term in prison for engineering a fraud estimated at as much as $64.8 billion.

Madoff for decades presented himself as a successful and trusted Wall Street kingpin while secretly engaging in investment fraud, prompting his sentencing judge to condemn his crimes as “extraordinarily evil.”

“Today’s distribution represents an unprecedented conclusion of victim compensation from civil forfeiture actions related to the Madoff scheme with more than $4 billion repaid to over 40,000 victims,” said Assistant Director in Charge James Dennehy of the FBI New York Field Office.

Dennehy added that “the FBI will continue its tireless seizure of assets from criminals who steal from others and seek to recover those assets for victim losses,” 

Madoff had been the largest market-maker on the Nasdaq stock exchange, once serving as its non-executive chairman. His brokerage firm was located in a Midtown Manhattan tower known as the Lipstick Building. Madoff died in 2021 at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, N.C. He was serving his 150-year sentence in Butner prison.

The year before his death Madoff sought “compassionate release” from prison so he could die at home, but the judge who had originally sentenced him to prison rejected that request.

“This office has never stopped pursuing justice for victims of history’s largest Ponzi scheme,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Edward Kim for the Southern District of New York. “With this 10th and final distribution, we have succeeded in compensating 40,930 victims with close to 94% of their losses. 

The Madoff Victim Fund is overseen by Richard Breeden, former chairman of the SEC, who serves as a special master appointed by the department to assist in connection with the victim remission proceedings.