Funds continued Monday to trickle out to victims of Bernard Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme, according to officials charged with overseeing the process.
Bankruptcy court trustee Irving Picard’s office told FOX Business Network that three more claims have been paid from Securities Investor Protection Corp. funds.
That brings the total of claims paid to date to 15 out of the 6,700 claims that have been filed so far.
The trustee’s office did not release a dollar figure for the three new claims, but the previous 12 each came to $500,000, the maximum allowed under legislation that created SIPC.
The deadline for filing a claim with SIPC is July 2.
Meanwhile, a Massachusetts-based broker-dealer firm partly owned by Madoff is expected to argue in court on Tuesday against having its licensed revoked.
The firm, Cohmad, will argue before a hearing officer in Boston against a motion by the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth for a default judgment to revoke Cohmad’s license.
Cohmad is 20% owned by Madoff, and also is the firm where Madoff’s wife Ruth has an account holding $45 million in bonds.
Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, during his investigation into Cohmad, revealed that Ruth Madoff had withdrawn from Cohmad accounts some $15 million in the weeks just prior to her husband’s arrest on Dec. 11.
Galvin has stated publicly that Ruth Madoff should be forced to return the $45 million in bonds, as well as $17 million she holds in cash at Wachovia Bank WFC), to the victims of her husband’s scheme.
A decision could be issued Tuesday, but sources in Massachusetts expect the hearing officer to take the arguments under advisement and issue a decision at a future date.
Finally, Madoff’s long-time accountant David Friehling, who on Thursday became the first person other than Madoff to be charged in the fraud, has until Tuesday morning to meet his bail deadlines if he wants to stay out of jail.
Those deadlines include the signatures of relatives who are putting their homes up as collateral for Friehling’s bail.
The properties include his home in New City, N.Y., just north of New York City; his father’s home in Delray, Fla., and his sister-in-law’s home in North Palm Beach.
Friehling, 49, was released on $2.5 million bail following his arraignment on six felony counts stemming from allegations that he helped Madoff operate his fraud by “rubber stamping” audits that purported to show Madoff was complying with generally accepted accounting principles.
The bankruptcy trustee has said records show Madoff did not conduct a single trade for his clients for at least 13 years prior to his arrest.
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