NEW YORK – Bernie Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme led to former New York Mets owners being embroiled in a $ 1 billion lawsuit, has died in prison at the age of 82.
Madoff burned thousands of investors, outwitted regulators and received a 150-year prison sentence. He died of natural causes at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina.
Among his victims were director Steven Spielberg, actor Kevin Bacon and Nobel laureate and survivor Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. But he also had ties to sports figures. The founder of the Hall of Fame, Sandy Koufax, was a client. Former Mets owners Fred Wilpon, Jeff Wilpon and Saul Katz were big investors. Their involvement changed the trajectory of the franchise.
Wilpon and Katz had more than 500 accounts with Madoff and were sued by the trustee for $ 1 billion for the victims who claimed to know or should have known about the fraudulent proceeds from Madoff’s plan, according to The New York Times.
Madoff was known for his double-digit returns and spread of words. Koufax was a high school friend of Wilpon. Former Mets striker Tim Teufel, former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman and former New York Islanders Bob Nystrom have also invested in Madoff.
In addition, the Mets Limited Partnership, the New York Mets Foundation and Brooklyn Baseball Company – the company that owns the Brooklyn Cyclones small league – have held accounts with Madoff.
While Madoff did do business with the rich and famous, he also defrauded everyday investors and charities. He was so insulted that he had to wear a bulletproof vest to court.
Madoff admitted to prosecutors that he had lost more than $ 50 billion that belonged to investors.
The collapse of its Ponzi scheme drastically affected the Mets’ finances, forcing the Wilpons to take out $ 65 million in loans to recover the payroll, including $ 25 million from other dog owners. The team had previously negotiated complicated contracts that delayed money – including the infamous agreement of Bobby Bonilla that the retired slugger would pay $ 20 million a year until 2035 – to invest money with Madoff.
“Bernie was part of the business plan for the Mets,” a former employee of the team told The New York Times in 2011.
The dropout shrank the team’s payroll, from $ 140 million in 2011 to $ 95 million in 2012 to $ 85 million in 2014, as salaries rose throughout the game. Subsequently, the Wilpons slowly lost power and their financial interest in the team.
The current Mets owner, Steve Cohen, bought a $ 20 million minority stake in the Mets after the collapse of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, and eventually bought the majority ownership of the franchise from the Wilpon and Katz families in September 2020. .
Madoff pleaded guilty in March 2009 to security fraud and other charges. In June 2009, a judge ordered a $ 171 billion forfeiture order that stripped Madoff of all his personal property, including real estate, investments and $ 80 million in assets.
The scandal also took a personal toll on Madoff’s family: one of his sons, Mark, killed himself on the second anniversary of his father’s arrest, in 2010. And Madoff’s brother, Peter, who runs the business helped drive, was sentenced to ten years in prison in 2012, despite allegations that he was in the dark about his brother’s misdeeds.
Madoff’s other son, Andrew, died of cancer at the age of 48. Madoff’s wife, Ruth, is still alive.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.