U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara called the settlement a “game changer” for Madoff’s victims

The widow of a Florida philanthropist who had been the single largest recipient of Bernard Madoff’s colossal Ponzi scheme has agreed to return $7.2 billion in bogus profits to the victims of the fraud, she and authorities announced today.

The trustee recovering money for Madoff’s ripped off  investors filed court papers formalizing the settlement with the estate of Jeffry Picower. Picower, who drowned after suffering a heart attack in the swimming pool of his Palm Beach, Florida mansion on Oct. 25, 2009.” Picower,was 67 when he died, was one of Madoff’s oldest clients. Over the decades, he withdrew about $7 billion in bogus profits from his accounts with the schemer.

That amounts to more than a third of the dollars that disappeared in the scandal.After Picower drowned, his will revealed that he had allocated most of his fortune for charity, but his widow said in a statement that the family wished to return some of it to Madoff’s victims through “a fair and generous settlement.”We will return every penny received from almost 35 years of investing with Bernard Madoff,” Picower’s wife, Barbara, said in a written statement.”I believe the Madoff Ponzi scheme was deplorable and I am deeply saddened by the tragic impact it continues to have on the lives of its victims,” she said. “It is my hope that this settlement will ease that suffering.”.U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara called the settlement a “game changer” for Madoff’s victims.