The trustee seeking to recover money for victims of convicted money manager Bernard Madoff said he filed 40 lawsuits on Friday, including several against relatives of the jailed con man.
Associated Press reports 22 of the lawsuits were filed against relatives of Madoff and his wife, trustee Irving Picard said in a news release. Eighteen lawsuits were filed against former employees of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, he said.
The latest flurry of lawsuit filings was made as the Dec. 11 deadline for filing looms.
Picard said his firm is seeking about $69 million in funds deposited by the company's customers and stolen in the 72-year-old's vast Ponzi scheme.
According to the wire service, Picard said the lawsuits were filed as part of an effort to recover funds from relatives and employees "who were closest to the center of the fraud and who were, in many cases, among those who benefited most from the Ponzi scheme."
Among the complaints, Madoff's sister, Sondra Weiner, is accused of having "profited for decades" from the scheme, Picard said.
