Charities Hurt by Madoff May Have To Return Funds

The battered image of Hadassah, the American women’s Zionist organization, may be harmed further by the disclosure earlier this month that its former chief financial officer was a mistress to Bernard Madoff — even as she sat on the committee that invested the charity’s funds with Madoff’s $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

But worse news may yet be in the offing.

Beyond the millions the organization reported losing with Madoff, Hadassah — and possibly other charities — may be required under a federal law to give back millions of dollars taken out of Madoff accounts, even before his firm collapsed.

The trustee in charge of recouping Madoff’s ill-gotten assets on behalf of all of his victims has pointedly refused to rule out this possibility. And a specter is haunting the halls of some of the Madoff non-profit victims — the specter of clawback.

“I have a statutory duty to treat fairly all customers, and part of that duty requires pulling together the largest possible fund of customer property from which to make payments,” said Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee for the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Securities, LLC, in a May conference call with reporters.

Tasked by a federal judge with recovering as much of Madoff’s assets as possible, Picard may seek to claw back funds from charities that reaped a net profit over the lifetime of their investments with Madoff. It is a power he has under federal law, with any recouped assets then going into a pool to be distributed to all of Madoff’s victims.

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THE FORWARD: http://www.forward.com/articles/112466/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_content=70951008&utm_campaign=August+28%2c+2009+_+dygkk&utm_term=Charities+Hurt+by+Madoff+May+Have+To+Return+Funds

and what ever money they have at the time of legal action.

liquidate the simom wiesenthal center?

of economics and accounting...

I do hope that, before going after the duped investors, the trustee strips every penny from the entire Madoff family.