Developer Edward Blumenfeld has won court approval in a deal with trustee Irving Picard to pay out $62 million in fake profits to victims of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.
The deal resolves a lawsuit from 2010 that accuses Blumenfeld and his wife of receiving $40 million in fraudulent profits, according to Bloomberg News, as well as accepting an $11 million transfer from the con man a few days before he was arrested in December 2008.
Blumenfeld runs the Long Island-based Blumenfeld Development Group, Which Built The East River Plaza in Harlem. The developer and his family invested about $140 million with Madoff across 38 accounts. Madoff, in turn, invested in Blumenfeld’s real estate ventures.
Earlier this week, Picard reached a $495 million settlement with two offshore funds that invested with Madoff, the website reported. Total recoveries for victims now stand at more than $10 billion, or about 60 percent of what was lost in the largest investment fraud scheme in U.S. history.[Bloomberg News] — Claire Moses