In an exclusive interview with the New York Times, convicted felon Bernard Madoff said that the Wilpons “knew nothing” about the Ponzi scheme.
Mr. Madoff said about Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, Mr. Wilpon’s brother-in-law and business partner: “They knew nothing. They knew nothing.”
Madoff said the trustee Irving Picard has no evidence that the Mets owners had any knowledge of the fraud, and that Picard is operating solely on his suspicion and contention that they should have known.
It was his first interview since his arrest in December 2008, and Madoff was very firm in his stance that neither the Mets owners or even his family members knew about his crimes.
However, he was just as adamant that the banks and hedge funds involved in the Ponzi scheme were “complicit” in his elaborate fraud.
These new revelations should be able to give the Wilpons and Saul Katz some much needed breathing room as they try to work though this mess and eventually come to a settlement with the trustee.
