Jeffry Picower Net Worth: Jeffry M. Picower was an American investor who was engaged in the Madoff investing fraud. He was born on May 5, 1942, and passed away on October 25, 2009. His wife decided to have his estate settle the claims against it by Madoff trustee Irving Picard for $7.2 billion, which is the greatest single forfeiture in the history of the American justice system. He was the biggest benefactor of Madoff’s Ponzi scam, and his widow agreed to have it happen.
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Jeffry Picower’s Personal Life
Barbara Picower was Jeffry Picower’s wife, and the couple had a child together. Regarding his personal life, there is not a lot of information available. On October 25, 2009, the body of Jeffry was discovered inside his home in Palm Beach. His wife reportedly reported to emergency personnel that she discovered his body at their seaside estate, where they lived, at the bottom of the swimming pool. After being taken to the Good Samaritan Medical Center, where he arrived around 80 minutes later, Picower was pronounced dead.
The Palm Beach County Medical Examiner’s Office concluded, based on the findings of the autopsy, that the man had a severe heart attack while he was in the swimming pool, which led to his unintentional drowning death. This conclusion was reached after the autopsy was completed.
After John passed away, Barbara picked up where she left off in her charitable work by establishing a new foundation that bore the name JPB Foundation. It is said that Barbara started the foundation with an endowment of $100 million, and as of 2018, it has more than $3.7 billion in total assets. The asset size of the foundation ranked it as the 24th largest foundation in the United States.
How Did Jeffry Picower Die?
In 2009, the body of a large investor with Madoff who had so much money invested with him that Madoff could never have reimbursed him was discovered at the bottom of his swimming pool. The investor passed away not long after his discovery. Picower died at his home in Palm Beach from a heart attack that he had while swimming by himself, according to the findings of the medical examiner who looked into his death.
How Much Money Has Been Recovered From Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme?
In December of 2022, the announcement came that the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme would be making its 14th payout of money. A trustee by the name of Irving Picard has been in charge of managing the recovery and distribution of cash to those who were affected by the theft. The settlement reached by Barbara Picower brought in $7.2 billion, bringing the total amount of money recovered to almost $14 billion as of right now.
ABC11 News reports that the amount will equal around 70 percent of the maximum claim amount that can be paid out to each individual client unless the customer’s claim has already been completely satisfied. Picard mentioned that “We are Proud to Continue Our Quest to Recover Additional Funds and Return Them to People Who Have Been Frauded.”
Jeffry Picower Net Worth
Jeffry Picower Net Worth: Prior to his passing on October 25, 2009, Jeffry Picower amassed a total net worth of approximately one billion dollars before he passed away. In 2009, Forbes Magazine included him on its list of the 400 wealthiest persons living in the United States. On the Forbes list, Picower came in at position 371 and had a total net worth that was valued at one billion dollars. However, the publication eventually admitted that the millionaire probably had an even greater net worth than they had first estimated.
Jeffry Picower Career
Jeffry Picower was an accountant with Laventhol & Horwath in the 1980s. While employed at Laventhol & Horwarth, he arranged dubious tax havens. After the IRS contested the legitimacy of his tax returns, one of his clients filed a lawsuit against him and the company. Later, in 1983, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reprimanded him for failing to disclose until then that he owned more than 5% of the firm merging with his own. Later, in 1991, he and the businessman Anthony Cerami set up a nonprofit organization called the Picower Institute for Medical Research with a $10 million endowment.
This non-profit organization eventually became Cytokine Networks, a for-profit business. PharmaSciences, a privately held company, acquired the former company and amalgamated it. The resulting corporation is now known as Cytokine PharmaSciences. At a later date, it was disclosed that Jeffry Picower owned 76.1% of PharmaSciences stock and controlled 86.2% of the company, putting him in a position of potential conflict of interest during merger negotiations. After Physicial Computer Network, Inc. collapsed in 2000, he was forced to distribute $21 million to other shareholders. To the tune of $1.6 billion in 2004, Cardinal Health acquired the company.
After founding the Jeffry M. and Barbara Picower Foundation in 1989, Picower joined its board of trustees. Bernard Madoff, a longstanding friend of his, handled the foundation’s finances. As time went on, the foundation gave away almost $268 million to various groups around the United States. In addition, MIT’s Center for Neuroscience Research received $50 million from the organization in 2002. Due to massive losses sustained as a result of the exposure of Madoff’s Ponzi scam, the foundation was forced to shut down in 2009.
Eventually, it came to light that between December 1995 and December 2008, Picower and his family had taken $5.1 million out of numerous Madoff accounts. For the restoration of $7.2 billion in earnings, a case was brought against Picower in the United States Bankruptcy Court in June 2009. It was reported in a June 2009 MSNBC piece that Picower and his wife were Madoff’s greatest winners.
Picower benefited from a new filing that was recorded in November 2009. According to the document, Picower wired $125 million to Madoff in April of 2006 to start an account. Within two weeks, the total climbed to $164 million. After five months, he took $125 million from the account, leaving $81 million behind. Barbara Picower and Irving Picard settled their legal dispute for $7.2 billion in December 2010. An agreement was struck to settle the Madoff trustee lawsuit and reimburse victims of the Madoff Ponzi scheme.
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