Fred Wilpon

  • 21 Mar 2012 at 3:27 PM

Bernie Madoff Not Feeling Wilpon Settlement

By

Convicted fraudster Bernie Madoff was “desperately disappointed” that the owners of the Mets chose to settle the fraud lawsuit brought on behalf of victims of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, CBS News reported Wednesday. “He wrote me last weekend that he was so looking forward to that trial,” said Diane Henriques, author of the book “Wizard of Lies” which detailed Madoff’s fraud. “He was hoping that the Mets’ defense would make the case he was making to me that they had no reason to doubt Madoff.” The trustee for Madoff’s victims, Irving Picard, was set to argue at trial that Mets owner Fred Wilpon, once a friend of Madoff and a longtime investor, was willfully blind and chose to ignore signs that Madoff was producing fraudulent returns. Henriques told CBS that in recent emails from prison Madoff blasted Picard, who was seeking more than $300 million at trial. “He calls Picard a fool, an amateur, says he doesn’t understand the market, says he never understood the market, that he’s just lost on Wall Street,” Henriques said. [NYP]

  • 13 Mar 2012 at 4:42 PM

Mets Owners Will Use The “No One Would Intentionally Rip Off Sandy Koufax” Defense in Madoff Case

By

Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax may testify for the owners of New York Mets at a civil trial accusing them of turning a blind eye to Bernard Madoff’s epic fraud. … According to the Mets owners, Koufax opened a Madoff account at Wilpon’s suggestion, and has been a lifelong friend of Wilpon, with whom he played high school baseball in Brooklyn, New York. “It strains credulity to think that Mr. Wilpon would expose his oldest and closest friend to potential financial ruin” by letting him invest with Madoff, if he knew Madoff was a fraud, the Mets owners said.

  • 27 May 2011 at 10:24 AM

Mets Fans Can Thank Bernie Madoff For Their 2000 NL Championship

By

Oddly, the Ponz Master hasn’t reminded anyone of this fact during his “Legitimate Years” tour but no matter- you’re welcome. Read more »

  • 23 May 2011 at 2:09 PM

Bernie Madoff Is Fairly Confident His Friends/Investors Will Forgive Him, If They Can Get Over Themselves

By

For the latest issue of the New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin explores the relationship between Bernie Madoff and Fred Wilpon, chairman and chief executive of the Mets and a victim of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, which resulted in Wilpon (and the baseball team) getting, how to put this? Fucked. As his new project while in the joint is getting people to remember his legacy and talk about all the great stuff he did prior to one blip on an otherwise tremendous career, Berns picked up where he left off with New York reporter Steve Fishman, to whom he griped in February:

“Does anybody want to hear that I had a successful business and did all these wonderful things for the industry? And got all these awards? And so did my family? I did all of this during the legitimate years. No. You don’t read any of that.”

Here’s what he had to say this time around: Read more »