Madoff clients: Celebs, sports icon, his own lawyer
NEW YORK -- A Who's Who list of potential victims of the alleged Ponzi scheme run by Bernard Madoff emerged Wednesday night in a federal bankruptcy court filing in New York.
The 162-page list included baseball Hall of Fame great Sandy Koufax, Hollywood director Steven Spielberg's charitable foundation, New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon's family and thousands of others, including several Madoff relatives and New York financial adviser and hedge fund operator J. Ezra Merkin. Madoff's defense attorney, Ira Lee Sorkin, is also on the list.
But the breakdown of more than 13,000 names and addresses apparently did not individually include previously known victims who invested with Madoff through brokers and other financial institutions.
Madoff was arrested in December and charged with securities fraud for allegedly running a scam that he told the FBI could total $50 billion. He is under house arrest in Manhattan pending prosecution.
The list was assembled by AlixPartners, a Texas firm hired by the court-appointed trustee handling the liquidation of Madoff's financial operation. The company compiled the list as part of an effort to contact potential Madoff victims and notify them about an opportunity to file payment claims.
AlixPartners also compiled similar lists of Madoff vendors, employees and others who had some association to the disgraced money manager. Those lists were also filed in bankruptcy court records Wednesday.
