Judge consolidates Madoff liquidation cases

Separate efforts to sell the businesses and personal property of disgraced financier Bernard Madoff have been combined to speed the process and get more of the proceeds to those he cheated. At a hearing today in Manhattan, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Burton Lifland consolidated a bankruptcy case involving Madoff's personal assets with a court-appointed trustee's case aimed at liquidating his business. A lawyer for the trustee, Marc Hirschfield, told the judge that consolidation made sense since Madoff's personal holdings and those of his firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, were "hopelessly intertwined." He said the move also would reduce the time and expense of a process using proceeds from the property to pay thousands of claims from burned investors. Madoff, 71, pleaded guilty in March to charges his investment advisory operation was a multibillion dollar pyramid scheme. He's scheduled to be sentenced on June 29, and could spend the rest of his life in prison. Trustee Irving Picard has frozen Madoff's bank accounts, sold legitimate portions of his business and filed lawsuits to reclaim ill-gotten gains. He has said that so far he has identified about $1 billion in assets that can be used to help cover nearly 9,000 claims. A statement filed by Madoff in 2008 put his worth at $823 million, but $700 million of that was his stake in his firm. Other property listed included a $4 million apartment in Manhattan, a $2.4 million home in Florida and a $7 million yacht. The trustee has claimed in court papers that an investigation has found that Madoff's family used his clients' money to pay for his sons' homes, travel, fancy meals and other personal expenses. The admitted swindler treated his firm "as his personal bank account, taking funds when he needed them and transferring funds to other Madoff entities or family members when it suited his whim and purposes," the trustee's lawyers wrote.