Bernie Madoff’s victims want to get their money back faster. The New York Post reports that hundreds of Bernie Madoff’s investors are arguing in court that Irving Picard, the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee in the Madoff case, is raking in too much cash for his stewardship of the ill-gotten funds.
The bill for Picard’s service works out to around $5,000 a day, and fees for his law firm come to more than $283,000 a day, according to court filings. Madoff’s victims are objecting to the steep fees, what they call a lack of transparency in the work being done to handle claims, and the fact that Picard has yet to determine “2,995 customer claims constituting $14 billion of the $20 billion of claims the trustee has said he will recognize.”
Curiously, a spokesman for Picard told the Post that fees paid to Picard don’t come out of the Madoff victims’ funds. The Securities Investor Protection Corporation handles that, the spokesman said.
