Mets Owners Made $300M Off Madoff Scheme: Suit

The New York Mets’ two owners, along with their businesses and families, made some $300 million in fictitious profits from Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme—putting them among its top beneficiaries, says a lawsuit unsealed today. The Mets withdrew some $90 million from the team’s 16 accounts with Madoff, and the money was used for “day-to-day” expenses, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Mets owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz “were simply in too deep—having substantially supported their businesses with Madoff money—to do anything but ignore the gathering clouds,” says the suit, filed in December under seal by Irving Picard, the trustee recovering victims' money. The two men “categorically reject” the charges. “While they may make for good headlines, they are abusive, unfair and untrue,” they said in a statement. “We should not be made victims twice over—the first time by Madoff, and again by the Trustee's actions.”
(More New York Mets stories.)