The effort to recover money for victims of Bernard Madoff took a dramatic turn Friday when officials said the widow of one of the Ponzi scheme’s biggest beneficiaries had agreed to turn over $7.2 billion.
Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said that the widow of deceased billionaire Jeffry Picower had agreed to return “proceeds” collected over 35 years.
He  said it was the largest forfeiture in U.S. history. The $7.2 billion represents more than one third of the total losses from Madoff’s crime.
“Barbara Picower today has done the right thing,” said Bharara, in a press conference at his Manhattan office. “I commend Barbara Picower for agreeing to return this staggering sum, which was other people’s money.”
Bharara said the $7.2 billion, combined with the $2.6 billion already recovered in stolen assets, is nearly half of the $20 billion lost to Madoff’s scheme.
Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee in the Madoff case, said that recovering the Picower funds through negotiation spared the victims the lengthy recovery process that would have resulted from litigation.
Barbara Picower said, in a prepared statement, that “this settlement honors what Jeffry would have wanted, which is to return this money so that it can go directly to the victims of Madoff.”
Picower, a philanthropist, was the most prominent of the successful Madoff investors. His wife, Barbara, discovered him unconscious in the pool of their Palm Beach, Fla., home on Oct. 25, 2009. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital following a heart attack. (CNN)
