Trustee may pursue Madoff family's assets to pay claims

— -- The court-appointed trustee pursuing Bernard Madoff's assets said Thursday that he may sue the disgraced financier's family as part of the effort to pay claims filed by nearly 9,000 victims of Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme.

Lawsuits against the relatives — who allegedly received hundreds of thousands of dollars of Madoff loans for real estate purchases or used his corporate credit card to pay personal expenses — "is a matter that's being looked into," said the trustee, Irving Picard.

"There's always a chance," Picard said during a briefing to update the status of the recovery effort. "The fact that we haven't brought a lawsuit against the Madoff family doesn't mean that we're not going to."

Madoff investment victims so far have received checks for about $30 million, or roughly half of the amount approved for payment to date under the federal Securities Investor Protection Corp., Picard said. The total of approved claims is expected to reach or exceed $100 million by Memorial Day, he said.

Roughly $1 billion in assets has been recovered. That total is expected to rise with anticipated settlements involving several entities that received payouts from the scam, said Picard.

The developments came as U.S. District Judge Denny Chin postponed Madoff's scheduled June 16 sentencing until June 29. The delay stemmed from routine scheduling issues, the judge's office said.

Madoff, who pleaded guilty in March, faces a maximum 150-year prison term for running a decades-long scam that victimized charities, celebrities, retirement funds, hedge funds and investors worldwide by using money from new investors to pay earlier ones.

Nearly $65 billion in customer accounts were listed in Madoff company records, which Picard said were unreliable and undergoing reconstruction "from the ground up" as part of the recovery effort. Former Madoff investment clients have filed 8,848 claims so far, in connection with 3,565 accounts, he said.

Picard has filed lawsuits to recover $10.1 billion from former Madoff business associates or so-called feeder funds that he alleged withdrew substantial sums during the life of the scheme.