This morning the lawsuit against the Mets owners was unsealed. Madoff’s actions were reprehensible and beyond belief. He deserves to sit in jail for the rest of his life.

What I don’t understand is this:

In the suit, Picard is seeking the $300 million in alleged profit as well as a to-be-determined share of the hundreds of millions in principal that Sterling invested with Madoff.

If for some reason you withdrew money from a Ponzi scheme before it collapsed the expectation/law is that you are required to return all of your profit. What happened if you took your cash out to buy something else, what happens if you lost the money? Why are “Net Winners” penalized after the fact? And the one that really gets me, why are they now expected to also take a loss on their principal investment?

How much money is Irving Picard making off of this?

via Mets owners accused of making $300 million in Madoff profit – Feb. 4, 2011.