I will use this post to publish some of the more interesting quotes I find as I read through the papers that were unsealed today in the Wilpon-Madoff Trustee lawsuit.

To read the entire thing yourself, go eat a heavy meal first – your gonna be a while, go here: Wilpon-Madoff Lawsuit Unsealed

Fernando A. Bohorquez, Jr., a Baker & Hostetler partner representing the Trustee.:

“There are thousands of victims of Bernard Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme. Saul Katz is not one of them. Neither is Fred Wilpon. And neither are the rest of the Sterling Equities’ partners. In fact, Saul Katz, Fred Wilpon, the other Sterling partners, … were collectively one of the largest beneficiaries of Madoff’s fraud, reaping hundreds of millions in fictitious profits over Sterling’s quarter-century relationship with Madoff.”

Saying the Wilpon empire was propped up by Madoff money:

Saul Katz, Fred Wilpon and their partners capitalized on their close personal connection with Madoff and used their BLMIS investments to anchor the Sterling empire. Madoff money flowed through every aspect of Sterling’s business; whether real estate, baseball or private equity, virtually every Sterling business held investments with BLMIS,” said Mr. Bohorquez.

Not funny, but tells you of the aggressive pursuit by Trustee:

suit even attempts to recover $27.5 million in “fictious profits” from 1 of Jeff’s children

On how the Wilpons were believed to have been warned about the Madoff scheme:

Given Sterling’s dependency on Madoff, it comes as no surprise that the partners willfully turned a blind eye to every red flag of fraud before them. The warning signs were many and varied, ranging from cautionary counsel from financial industry experts and trusted advisors to Madoff’s schemes to avoid regulatory scrutiny.

Other Warnings:

Suit also says Wilpons were warned of potential trouble with Madoff in 2007 by Merrill-Lynch.

Wilpons/Katz also received warnings in 2002 and 03 from various outside parties, suit says

They “made so much easy money from Madoff for so long that despite the many objective indicia of fraud before them, the Sterling partners chose to simply look the other way”

And this my fellow Mets fan’s is the scariest part:

Suit also says Wilpons so dependent on Madoff financing their activities they had to restructure >$500 million in debt after fraud uncovered

So aside from all this, the Wilpons had $500 million on debt that had to restructure, could it be CitiField debt? Saying that none of this would effect the Mets is laughable at this point.

Thanks in large part to @AdamRubinESPN for a lot of the information.

Today the lawsuit filed by Irving Picard (the Madoff Victims trustee) against the Wilpons and Sterling Equities was made public.

Read: Mets Official Statement
Read: Madoff Trustee’s Official Statement

I am gonna try to keep this post as brief as possible, cause you know me, I could rant on for pages and pages. I will start with a quote from the Trustee:

There are thousands of victims of Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme. But Saul Katz is not one of them. Neither is Fred Wilpon. And neither are the rest of the partners at Sterling.

As I can best understand it – the numbers break down like this:

Trustee: The Mets withdrew $300 million more then they ever put into the Madoff fund.
Wilpons: We are victims because we thought we had $500 million more in the account, and we lost that.

In essence regardless of what the Wilpons initial investment was, they figured they made $800 million in profit. Of that profit they withdrew $300 of it (plus their initial investment) leaving another $500 million to apparently continue to accrue imaginary additional profits.

Basically the Wilpons think they are victims cause they lost their additional $500 million after already profiting $300 of other peoples money. Listen, I understand it sucks when you think you have $500 million in a safe place and it turns out you don’t (well no, I don’t understand, but I can try to imagine). But they need to step back and think about all the people who lost EVERYTHING.

What about all the Mets employees who had their 401k’s invested heavily in the Madoff fund (90% reportedly) and now have nothing?

I am still digesting all the info, but right now I am flabbergasted by the Wilpons delusions….

Rumors are swirling that the lawsuit against the Wilpons could be unsealed as early as today as negotiations fell apart yesterday on efforts to reach a private settlement.

There is a lot of bickering back and forth but the bottom line is that the Wilpons team accused the Trustee of the Madoff victims of strategically leaking sealed information in an effort to smear the Wilpons. Because of this the Wilpon team filed motions to request the lawsuit be unsealed and it’s felt this could happen today. The hearing was originally dated for Feb 9th.