Trustee files two suits in Madoff case

NEW YORK, May 13 (UPI) -- Court trustee Irving Picard, assigned to the Barnard Madoff fraud case, filed a lawsuit to recover $5.1 billion from a Florida investor, court records show.

Picard estimates that investors lost $65 billion Madoff's Ponzi scheme and that about $12 billion had been withdrawn from various Madoff accounts, half of that within three months of Madoff's arrest in December, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

Defendants in the recent suit, Jeffry and Barbara Picower, should be viewed as victims, attorney William Zabel said.

The couple, who run the Picower Foundation, "were totally shocked by his (Madoff's) fraud," Zabel said. "They lost billions in personal assets."

The suit claims Picower should have known his accounts with Madoff were too good to be true, with profits too consistent or unrealistic.

The complaint says one account in 1999 posted an annual profit of more than 950 percent.

From 1996 to 1999, that account and one other posted annual gains between 120 percent and 550 percent, court papers said.

Picard also filed suit in New York Tuesday seeking the return of $1 billion withdrawn from Madoff accounts in 2008 by Harley International, a foreign hedge fund, the newspaper said.