More bad news for the Mets: Federal Judge Jed Rakoff ruled that the Mets' owners must go to trial over fake profits earned from Bernard Madoff's huge Ponzi scheme. The NY Times reports that Rakoff "not only rejected a bid by the team’s owners to have the remaining claims of a lawsuit filed by the trustee for the victims of Bernard L. Madoff’s fraud dismissed, but he also decided that the trustee was entitled to collect up to $83 million in fictitious profits from the men. He said the exact amount would be determined in a 'subsequent order.'"
Further, the jury trial might have the jury finding that the Mets' owners owe even more. But that would require trustee Irving Picard, in charge of getting ill-gotten gains back to Madoff victims, proving "that the Mets’ owners were 'willfully blind' to Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme and ignored warnings that he was operating a fraud." Rakoff is "skeptical that the Trustee can ultimately rebut the defendants' showing of good faith, let alone impute bad faith to all the defendants.”
Picard initially sued the Mets' owners for $1 billion, then said they owed $300 million, and recently claimed that Fred Wilpon, Saul Katz et al. were hooked on Madoff's returns. The Mets are in the process of selling minority shares of the team.
