Fred Wilpon appeared to actually make a profit on his investments with Bernie Madoff:
The filing showed that the Mets Limited Partnership, which is connected with Sterling Equities Inc., owner of the Mets, deposited about $523 million into two accounts with Mr. Madoff — and withdrew about $571 million.
This makes the partnership a “net winner” from the fraud and thus ineligible to receive compensation from the trustee, who is recovering assets for Madoff investors. Indeed, some of the gains could be subject to a legal claim by the trustee, who has said some net winners may have to pay back withdrawals they made in the six years before Mr. Madoff was arrested in December and charged with operating a large Ponzi scheme.
“As has been stated previously, this has no effect on the operations of the New York Mets,” the team said in a statement.
I assume that since Wilpon and Madoff were friends, Fred got in early, which is the way to make money on these schemes.