Posted by Sabrina B. @gametimegirl
The New York Mets were sued Tuesday by Irving H. Picard, the trustee charged with distributing money to victims of convicted felon Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, the organization acknowledged.
CNBC reported that the Wilpon family, who also owns the team, also was sued.
A statement from the organization indicated the sides already are in settlement negotiations. And the Mets pledged the situation would not affect the team’s operations.
According to recent New York Times reports, one Mets fund — called “Mets Limited Partnership” — invested $522.7 million with Madoff over the years and withdrew $570.5 million — resulting in a $47.8 million profit.
Sterling Equities, the Wilpon-owned real estate company, released this statement: “The Trustee for Bernard L. Madoff and BLMIS today has filed a complaint against various Sterling partners and entities. Because the parties are engaged in settlement negotiations, the complaint is filed confidentially, under seal.
“Consequently, we will have no further comment at this time. Regardless of the outcome of these discussions, we want to emphasize that the New York Mets will have all the necessary financial and operational resources to fully compete and win. That is our commitment to our fans and to New York.”
In October, Mets principal owner Fred Wilpon spoke about being a victim of Madoff.
“I would say the Madoff issue, certainly for the people in this room that represent Sterling, their [lost] money ‘smarts.’ There’s no question,” the 74-year-old Wilpon said. “You don’t like to lose money that is just stolen from you. But the betrayal is something I’ll never, ever forget. I’ll go to my grave in that one, as will [team president] Saul [Katz] and [chief operating officer] Jeff [Wilpon] and the rest of our partners. That was a total betrayal of us. We were investors for something like 25 years.”
As for the effect on the Mets, Wilpon added then: “I’m not minimizing the money, but it was only one part of our business and took some liquidity away. But that’s not the part of the business that was running the shop. We have several other parts of our business.
“We have several other kinds of companies, and all are doing either reasonably well or very well. The real estate business is down generally, but ours is pretty darn good — the development business as well, and some of the other businesses.”
Adam Rubin
