The New York Mets-Bernie Madoff mess gets messier

[marmar]

(Bloomberg) Mets owners Fred Wilpon, Saul Katz and the Sterling Equities Inc. partners “refuse to return” $300 million in “other people’s money” received from Bernard L. Madoff, said a lawyer for the trustee liquidating the estate of the jailed con man.

Trustee Irving Picard’s lawyer, David Sheehan, made the statement today as part of a move to persuade a bankruptcy judge not to dismiss Picard’s $1 billion lawsuit against the Mets owners. In addition to $300 million in what he called “fictitious profits,” the trustee is seeking return of their principal invested with Madoff.

Picard said his case against Sterling and its partners stems from a bankruptcy-law concept of good faith. The concept doesn’t require that those sued acted illegally or knew they were dealing with a Ponzi scheme, he said.

“Under bankruptcy law, a defendant did not act in good faith if what it knew about BLMIS gave it a reason to inquire further, but instead it turned a blind eye and continued to take money from an enterprise it should have known might be a fraud,” he said in the statement. Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC was Madoff’s investment firm. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-19/mets-owners-hold-300-million-from-madoff-picard.html