As the deadline approaches for Madoff crusader Irving Picard to file lawsuits against any potential malefactor he can think of, the trustee is going for the gusto. He’s suing Austrian banker Sonja Kohn for $19.6 billion and calling her Madoff’s “criminal soul mate, whose greed and dishonest inventiveness equaled his own.” Ouch.
The resemblance, in The Observer‘s opinion, isn’t purely ideological. Is it just us, or does Ms. Kohn look a lot like Bernie Madoff wearing a wig? Anyway, here are the details, courtesy The New York Times:
Ms. Kohn led what the trustee’s complaint called the Medici Enterprise, a labyrinth of European banks, hedge funds, asset management firms, offshore trusts and shell companies.
In the lawsuit, filed on Friday in Federal Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, the trustee contended that billions of dollars of other people’s money poured into Mr. Madoff’s fraud through these conduits – and tens of millions poured out in the form of fees and “kickbacks” to Ms. Kohn from Mr. Madoff.
The 157-page complaint claimed that about half the fraud’s stolen funds – $9.1 billion out of an estimated $19.6 billion – was directly attributable to Ms. Kohn, her family members and their elaborate portfolio of so-called feeder funds.
mtaylor [at] observer.com | @mbrookstaylor
