Kevin Bacon And His Wife Kyra Sedgwick Are Expected To Receive A Substantial Payout After Losing Millions To Incarcerated U.s. Conman Bernie Madoff.
The celebrities were among the many wealthy clients who were conned into investing in the Wall Street fraudster's elaborate 'Ponzi scheme', which he used to fund his lavish lifestyle. The scam was exposed in 2008 when Madoff was arrested. He is currently serving a 150-year sentence in a federal prison in North Carolina.
Bankruptcy lawyers have been working to recover the lost funds ever since, and although some victims, like John Malkovich, have previously been granted settlements, others are only now starting to have funds returned.
Debt officials have so far recovered more than $11 billion of the $17 billion lost in the scheme and some lucky investors will be paid back in full, according to papers filed in court on Tuesday (20Oct15).
Stephen P. Harbeck, President/CEO of Securities Investor Protection Corp., who is working on the case, tells America's ABC News, "The calculations are that anyone who put in $1,161,000 is gonna be made completely whole in this distribution. And that's most of the people who have valid claims."
Others who invested more than $1.1 million (£687,500) will recover almost two thirds of their money.
Harbeck adds, "Coming out of Ponzi scheme with 61 per cent of what you started out with is a major victory."
Veteran actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, Manchester United soccer boss Louis van Gaal, and charity officials at Steven Spielberg's Wunderkinder Foundation were also among those affected by Madoff's fraudulent activity.
The news of the latest financial settlements emerges as Robert De Niro prepares to portray Madoff in upcoming TV movie Wizard of Lies. Michelle Pfeiffer has been cast as Madoff's wife, Ruth.
Bacon previously opened up about his links to Madoff in a 2001 Details magazine interview, admitting the reality of his family's losses hit him and his wife hard - but they were determined to get on with their lives.
"I'm not going to say it didn't have its emotional downsides," he said, "but we were both young and we both had the ability to work and roll up our sleeves and start putting the pieces back together. The truth is that we went through it together."
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