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Madoff Case Is Paying Off for Trustee ($850 an Hour)
By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN
Irving H. Picard, the court-appointed trustee seeking to recover funds for the victims of Bernard L. Madoff’s multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, has been described as a modern-day Robin Hood. For nearly four years, he has been working to pay back those who were swindled by Mr. Madoff, some who lost their entire life savings.
Yet a look at recent court filings shows Mr. Picard has had much more success collecting money for himself and a dozen law firms and consultants than any victim of Mr. Madoff’s crime.
So far, Mr. Picard’s efforts have created a whopping $554 million in legal and other fees. How much have Mr. Madoff’s victims actually received from all of the cases and motions he’s made? Only $330 million. And how much does Mr. Picard estimate the fee spigot will pour out by 2014? A mere $1 billion.
At $850 an hour, Mr. Picard and his law firm, Baker & Hostetler, are starting to look more like the princes of the Full Employment Act for Lawyers than storybook heroes.
In the last several years, Mr. Picard has brought more than 1,000 cases seeking more than $100 billion on behalf of victims, despite acknowledging that only about $17.3 billion had actually been invested by customers.
(The entire Ponzi scheme has been estimated to be worth $65 billion, but much of that is the result of made-up profits recorded by Mr. Madoff.)
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/05/.../?ref=business
By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN
Irving H. Picard, the court-appointed trustee seeking to recover funds for the victims of Bernard L. Madoff’s multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, has been described as a modern-day Robin Hood. For nearly four years, he has been working to pay back those who were swindled by Mr. Madoff, some who lost their entire life savings.
So far, Mr. Picard’s efforts have created a whopping $554 million in legal and other fees. How much have Mr. Madoff’s victims actually received from all of the cases and motions he’s made? Only $330 million. And how much does Mr. Picard estimate the fee spigot will pour out by 2014? A mere $1 billion.
At $850 an hour, Mr. Picard and his law firm, Baker & Hostetler, are starting to look more like the princes of the Full Employment Act for Lawyers than storybook heroes.
In the last several years, Mr. Picard has brought more than 1,000 cases seeking more than $100 billion on behalf of victims, despite acknowledging that only about $17.3 billion had actually been invested by customers.
(The entire Ponzi scheme has been estimated to be worth $65 billion, but much of that is the result of made-up profits recorded by Mr. Madoff.)
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/05/.../?ref=business
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