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Empresas y finanzas

Estate of Madoff insider Picower settles claims


    NEW YORK (Reuters) - The estate of Jeffry Picower, the billionaire beneficiary of Bernard Madoff's fraud, is settling claims by a trustee recovering money for thousands of swindled investors, officials said on Friday.

    Picower, who died of a heart attack in Florida in October 2009, was sued by trustee Irving Picard for $7.2 billion. The Picower family said at the time of his death that he had been working toward reaching a settlement.

    "A press conference will be held today to announce a settlement with the Estate of Jeffry M. Picower to benefit the victims of Bernard L. Madoff's Ponzi scheme," a joint statement by Picard, the office of the Manhattan U.S. Attorney and other law enforcement agencies said.

    It provided no further details. Madoff, 72, is serving a 150-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to orchestrating the massive fraud over decades. U.S. prosecutors initially estimated the fraud took in about $65 billion.

    Picard has put the amount of investor money lost at about $20 billion, considered the biggest investment fraud in history.

    (Reporting by Grant McCool, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)