Another $158 million has been paid out to victims of global swindler Bernie Madoff, the feds announced Monday — bringing the total to a whopping $4.22 billion.
A compensation fund to repay victims of Madoff — who died in 2021 while serving out a 150-year prison term — has begun distributing its ninth installment to 24,875 people worldwide, according to the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office.
The Madoff Victim Fund was set up a decade ago after the scam king — who became one of the world’s most hated figures when his $65 billion Ponzi scheme was revealed — copped to his crimes.
Including the new payout, the fund will have disbursed a total of $4.22 billion to 40,843 victims, who span 127 countries and 49 US states — helping them to recoup 91% of their losses, the feds said.
Fund special master Richard C. Breeden lauded the progress made in making victims whole again and said the fund is aiming to make a final payout by the end of 2024, according to an update report released this month.
“When we started, no one knew how many Madoff victims existed, where they were, or the amount of their losses,” Breeden said. “Now, in our tenth anniversary year, we have finally pushed past the 90% payout milestone.”
“Today’s announcement is a realization of our dreams of what we could do to help so many people with shattered lives,” the special master said. “At [Madoff Victim Fund], we have traced the contours of the fraud, calculated the stolen cash and then put it back directly into the hands of the people from whom it was stolen.”
The compensation money not only comes from the funds Madoff was forced to cough up at his sentencing, but also from his co-conspirators.
Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 financial crimes in 2009 and was sentenced that year.
He died in a federal lockup in North Carolina on April 14, 2021, at 82.
Madoff’s massive stock fraud ripped off not only investors but also his friends and family through a shady wealth management company he started in 1960.
He made a failed bid for compassionate release in the summer of 2020 on the grounds that he only had months left to live due to kidney disease.
Roughly 500 victims at the time wrote letters to the judge saying that Madoff should die behind bars.
“The financial toll on those who entrusted their money with Madoff was devastating, and this Office’s unprecedented efforts to return money to Madoff’s victims has now resulted in clawbacks of 91% of fraud losses to their rightful owners,” Manhattan US Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement Monday.