Negotiations with Madoff’s accomplices continue, still no money for investors

According to court document, the trustee in the Madoff case is in settlement negotiations with the Fairfield funds and the Kingate funds, which fed an estimated $3.8 billion into Bernard Madoff's epic swindle. The trustee sued Hedge funds in separate litigation as part of his efforts to recover money for investors bilked in the Wall Street's biggest investment fraud amounted to $65 billion over 20 years, according to U.S. prosecutors. About $13.2 billion has been identified so far but only $1.2 billion was recovered by trustee Irving Picard.

Agreement had been made to extend until September 21 the time for Fairfield Sentry Limited, Greenwich Sentry, L.P. and Greenwich Sentry Partners, L.P. to answer the May complaint against them. The trustee had accused the Connecticut-based Fairfield funds of making $3.5 billion in fake profits in the fraud. Fairfield has denied knowledge of the fraud and said it was also a victim of Madoff. A pretrial conference was scheduled for October 6, 2009.

Kingate euro Fund, Ltd. and its bank, the Bank of Bermuda Limited, were given extended time until July 27 to answer the trustee's April complaint. According to Picard`s claim, British Virgin Islands-based Kingate withdrew $255 million from Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC within three months of his arrest last December. The next court date is July 28.

Madoff pleaded guilty in March to running a massive Ponzi scheme in which early investors are paid with the money of new clients. Madoff got 150 years` imprisonment on June 29 and was moved last week to prison in North Carolina from his holding cell in New York to serve his term.