WASHINGTON _ Thousands of victims of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme are due to get checks totaling $378 million from a U.S. Justice Department fund created years ago through settlements with some of the con man's oldest customers and his bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co.
The distribution from the Madoff Victim Fund will bring total government payouts in the case to more than $2.7 billion for almost 38,000 investors across the globe, the Justice Department said Monday in a statement. That's almost 74% of their claimed losses, the U.S. said.
The fund _ which will eventually return more than $4 billion to victims _ is separate from the repayment process being overseen by a trustee in federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan, according to the statement.
Madoff's investors lost about $20 billion in principal and more than $40 billion in fake profit when his securities firm collapsed in 2008. He's serving a 150-year sentence in North Carolina after pleading guilty to fraud.
The Justice Department accepted claims from people who invested indirectly with Madoff through hedge funds or money managers and were therefore barred from filing claims with the bankruptcy trustee, Irving Picard.
Picard is still recouping money for victims by suing investors who took out more money from their accounts than they put in. His litigation has so far recovered more than $14.3 billion, of which more than $13 billion has already been returned to victims.
