Madoff Trustee Sues 25 Fairfield Greenwich Affiliates

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The trustee for convicted Ponzi scheme operator Bernard Madoff's firm sued more than two dozen affiliates of Fairfield Greenwich Group and its founding partners late Tuesday, saying they wrongly enriched themselves from the fraud.

The amended complaint, filed by court-appointed trustee Irving Picard, adds 25 Fairfield Greenwich affiliates and 19 individuals as defendants, including Walter Noel and two other founding partners. Mr. Picard previously sued three Fairfield Greenwich hedge funds, which served as feeder funds to Mr. Madoff.


The complaint, filed in federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan, alleges the Fairfield Greenwich affiliates and the individual defendants had "actual and constructive knowledge" of Mr. Madoff's fraud and "generally looked the other way" in the interest of profit. Fairfield Greenwich is believed to be the largest feeder to Mr. Madoff.

"The defendants were not victims," the lawsuit said. "They were enablers. They were facilitators. They deepened the pain of Madoff's customers and their own investors. The effect of their actions was a catastrophic continuation of the Ponzi scheme, the worsening of the (Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC's) insolvency and billions of dollars in additional damages."