Fred Wilpon’s baseball empire may be on the verges of serious alterations. I think they would have been much better trying to settle this case with the trustee of the people who lost money.
But, being a Mets fan for nearly 30 years and seeing how the Wilpom’s operate, they probably tried a low-ball offer like they most often do with negotiating with free agent players.
The Wilpons always low-ball!
I think Irving Picard said to Fred Wilpon, “Fuck you! See ya in court.” I can just see it going down like that.
It’s time for the Wilpons to sell the team-period!
But, being a Mets fan for nearly 30 years and seeing how the Wilpom’s operate, they probably tried a low-ball offer like they most often do with negotiating with free agent players.
The Wilpons always low-ball!
I think Irving Picard said to Fred Wilpon, “Fuck you! See ya in court.” I can just see it going down like that.
It’s time for the Wilpons to sell the team-period!
The New York Post reports the Mets day-to-day operations were fueled by $322 million in fake profits from investments made with scammer Bernie Madoff, according to a complaint unsealed today.
The explosive lawsuit demands the large amount from the owners of the Mets -- claiming they happily lined their pockets with hundreds of millions of dollars in sleazy profits while ignoring clear signs that Madoff was a lying, cheating scam artist.
The bombshell legal action brought by court-appointed trustee Irving Picard threatens to bleed the owners big-time out of the undeserved, "fictitious" Madoff-related profits -- and could ultimately force them to sell off the Mets to satisfy legal debts.
In a scathing news release, a lawyer for Picard, who is suing Mets owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz as part of his effort to recoup money for victims of Madoff, blasted the duo.
“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,” said Fernando Bohorquez, a lawyer representing Picard.
“In fact, Saul Katz, Fred Wilpon, the other Sterling partners, their families, their related trusts, and their various privately held entities 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.”
The Mets countered with a statement immediately after, saying they were not guilty of any wrongdoing.
"We have done nothing wrong," Wilpon and Katz said after the Manhattan federal bankruptcy court lawsuit was unsealed.
"We played by the rules," said the owners, whose Sterling Equities controls the Mets. "We are confident we will win in court."
Talks to settle a lawsuit against the team's cash-poor owners for allegedly profiting from Madoff's Ponzi scheme collapsed yesterday, leaving the Amazin's under even more pressure to sell a stake -- if not the entire team.
The failure to cut a deal with the trustee who is empowered to claw back cash from those who profited from Madoff's epic scheme also set the stage for damning legal allegations against the Wilpon and his family to become public today.
And it means Wilpon -- who's already trying to unload up to a 25 percent stake in the team to raise desperately needed cash to pay off Madoff victims' claims -- stands to risk losing total control of the franchise by fighting the case in court instead of settling.
Picard's lawsuit accuses the Mets owners of profiting from Madoff's scheme by pulling out $322 million in profits before the $65 billion scam collapsed in December 2008.
The suit also claims that the owners either knew or should have known that Madoff was a fraud -- but turned a blind eye as they earned massive profits.
Madoff, 72, is serving a 150-year prison term after pleading guilty to orchestrating the scheme.
In the suit, the trustee said the Mets pocketed $295 million in fictitious profits, another $14 million in transfers and $12 million that Madoff and his Family invested with Sterling using stolen money.
Wilpon, his fellow owner, partner and brother-in-law, Katz, and their relatives were sued in Manhattan federal bankruptcy court in December by Picard.
The lawsuit was filed under seal to give the bankruptcy trustee and the Mets owners the ability to negotiate a settlement. But in a letter to federal bankruptcy Judge Burton Lifland yesterday, Picard's lawyers wrote, "Settlement negotiations with [the Mets owners] have ended."
Wilpon and Katz, in their statement, said, "The trustee's lawsuit is an outrageous strong -rm effort to try to force a settlement by threatening to ruin our reputations and businesses which we have built for over 50 years."
"This is a flagrant abuse of the Trustee’s authority and we will not succumb to his pressure. The conclusions in the complaint are not supported by the facts. While they may make for good headlines, they are abusive, unfair and untrue. We categorically reject them. We should not be made victims twice over - the first time by Madoff, and again by the Trustee's actions," fumed Wilpon and Katz.
"The plain truth is that not one of the Sterling partners ever knew or suspected that Madoff ran a Ponzi scheme. Because the trustee has no evidence to support his claims even after a year-and-a-half review of over 700,000 pages of documents and many, many hours of depositions, he has created a claim that we "knew or should have known" that Madoff was a fraud," the owners said.
"Why should we 'have known' when the SEC and other government agencies that had oversight responsibilities did not know?
In fact, the SEC reported that Madoff was above board and legitimate, even after it investigated him many times."
"The trustee is suing not only for what he defines as "fictitious profits" but for monies that we deposited with Madoff over almost 25 years. That is outrageous, unfounded and inconsistent with the law.
Let us be clear, the Trustee is attempting to seize money originally invested with Madoff, which was earned from the Sterling businesses.
A source who knows Wilpon said, in response to news of the settlement talks collapsing, "I'm sure Picard wants a big settlement now, and Fred just doesn't have the money.
"This will devolve into a full sale of the team," the source predicted.
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