For Mets’ Owners, Court Fight Could Be Costly

Irving H. Picard, the court-appointed trustee in the Madoff fraud case, wants $1 billion from Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz.

By KEN BELSON
NYT

Last week, Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, the owners of the Mets, indicated they had no intention of being, as they termed it, strong-armed into settling with the court-appointed trustee who is seeking $1 billion from them to be distributed to victims of Bernard L. Madoff’s vast fraud.

The two men accused the trustee, Irving H. Picard, of essentially conducting a witch hunt, claiming that his lawsuit, filed in December in Manhattan, was “abusive, unfair and untrue.” Allegations contained in the suit that they ignored warnings about Madoff’s possible fraud while making a killing over years of lucrative investing with his firm, they said, were “outrageous and irresponsible,” aimed at sullying their good names.

Their uncharacteristically blunt statements, at first blush, suggest that they could be willing to fight their case in court rather than settle with the trustee — who has collected nearly $10 billion so far from other Madoff investors he says profited improperly from their dealings with the mastermind of a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme.

But should Wilpon and Katz choose to fight, they could well face a very hard road, whatever the merits of their claims of innocence, according to interviews with lawyers and other legal experts. A court case would cost millions of dollars in legal fees, prolong their public association with Madoff potentially for years, and perhaps even drive down the value of their remaining financial holdings, including the Mets.

(More here.)