Jeffry Picower, who drowned in late October after suffering a heart attack in the swimming pool of his Palm Beach home, made billions of dollars from Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. Before his death, he signed a will leaving the bulk of those billions to charity.
Madoff trustee Irving Picard has sued for the $7 billion Picower withdrew from his Madoff accounts over the decades while his family argues that under New York law, it should only have to return the bogus profits earned in the past six years--$2.4 billion.
While the family, according to their lawyer, William D. Zabel, might be open to paying “more than the law would require them to, in order to help the victims of Madoff’s scheme”, they have also made it clear that they are trying to protect their own charitable projects, such as the Picower Institute of Learning and Memory, the New York Library and the Harlem Children’s Zone, to which Picower left $25 million, $1 million and $1 million respectively. Picower, who had Parkinson’s disease, also left $4 million to a group of Parkinson’s disease research scientists.
Zabel said that as the two sides are in negotiations, he could not discuss the exact numbers of what the family might ultimately be willing to pay in a settlement. He added that the Madoff case has been “an albatross” for the family, and weighed on Picower personally before his death.
Barbara Picower, surviving wife of Jeffry, was quoted as saying that it was "a great tragedy that my husband Jeffry's sudden and untimely death prevented him from seeing the full restoration of his reputation for honesty, integrity and professional achievement."
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