Liquidator targets Madoff relatives for missing millions

NEW YORK (AFP) - The trustee attempting to recover billions of dollars stolen by convicted Wall Street con man Bernard Madoff has targeted family members he says used the ill-gotten gains to fund "lavish lifestyles."

Wall Street con man Bernard Madoff (© AFP/Getty Images/File - Mario Tama)

Three lawsuits filed late Thursday in federal bankruptcy court in New York seek to retrieve about 30 million dollars from entities linked to Madoff's immediate family.

Irving Picard, the government-appointed trustee, filed the suits against a family fund and two family-related businesses that he said had benefited from Madoff's activities and therefore should give up money to victims of the scam.

One complaint accuses Bernard Madoff's brother, two sons and niece of failing to meet their obligations at the phony investment firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities (BLMIS), where they were senior managers.

"While acting in complete dereliction of their management responsibilities to BLMIS, Peter, Andrew, Marka and Shana were also among the unlawful recipients of close to 200 million dollars of BLMIS customer funds which they used to fund lavish lifestyles," one of the three lawsuits says.

The four have not been criminally charged in Madoff's record-breaking Ponzi scheme in which he stole from rich investors for years while pretending to manage money at BLMIS. The swindler, aged 72, was sentenced last year to 125 years prison.

So far Picard has recovered approximately 1.5 billion dollars in assets to be distributed to Madoff's victims. The scam is believed to have stripped tens of billions of dollars from investors during more than two decades.

In one of the lawsuits, Picard says that Madoff's close family essentially used BLMIS as a piggybank.

"The assets of BLMIS have been wrongfully diverted as a result of fraudulent conveyances, fraudulent transfers, conversions and other wrongdoings of the Family Fund and/or Family Fund Members for their own invdividual interests and enrichment," Picard alleges.

"They either knew of the fraud or intentionally shut their eyes to it."