Mets Boss Made Money off Madoff

A partnership associated with New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon invested heavily with Bernard Madoff--and made money.

It has long been known that the Wilpon family had been one of Madoff's investors, but new information shows he actually came out ahead, at least from two accounts.

Documents show the Mets Limited Partnership, connected with Sterling Equities Inc., invested $523 million in two accounts with Madoff, now serving a 150-year federal prison sentence for the largest Ponzi scheme in history. The group withdrew about $571 million, a net gain of about $48 million.

So someone associated with the Mets got lucky for once, right? Well, not exactly. Here's how the New York Post puts it: "Mets lose again." Why? because the gain means the partnership obviously won't be able to get any money from the trustee handling payoouts to Madoff victims, and may indeed be subject to a clawback lawsuit.

The Mets Partnership was among 31 investors on a new list of those who actually made money with Madoff.

The trustee, Irving Picard, isn't talking about whether he would try to get the money made by the Mets Partnership back. But it's certainly a possibility. He's faced with the daunting task of trying to pay back the thousands who lost money with Madoff, and needs every penny to pay what will be pennies on the dollar to Madoff victims. There's no way, he has said, that he will be able to repay all the victims in the $65 billion scheme off in full.

Picard has already filed a lawsuit against Madoff's brother, Peter, chief compliance officer at the Madoff firm; two sons, Andrew and Mark,co-directors of trading; and niece, Shana, the compliance director. He's seeking $199 million from the family members.Picard sued Madoff's wife Ruth for $44.8 million in July.

Of course, the money-making accounts might not tell the whole story of the Wilpons and Madoff. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Wilpons had invested with Madoff for many years and it's unclear how much was invested with the fraudster at the time of his firm's collapse.

And speaking of lawsuits involving the Madoff scandal, information contained in a suit filed by the scammer's victims paints a bleak picture of his life on the inside, and a wild one of his days as a Wall Street master of the universe.

Now, he shares a cell with a 21 year old convicted of drug crimes and pals around with Colombo crime family boss Carmine Persico.

But back in the day, Madoff's office was known as the North Pole for all the cocaine that was being done, and parties at the office included women wearing nothing but G-strings.

Bet Bernie wishes he could go back in time.