(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons )

BY ELIZABETH RINEHART

ANCHOR CHRISTINA HARTMAN

 

Mets owners came to an agreement Monday to settle for $162 million with the trustees of the Bernie Madoff bankruptcy fund. MSNBC has more .

 

“The trustees for the Madoff victims argued that Mets owners knew the investment scheme was a fraud but continued investing anyway because they were making a lot of money. Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz deny knowing that Madoff was cheating investors.”

 

The figure of $162 million represents six years of ‘fictitious profits’ that the Mets’ owners made as a result of investing in Madoff’s firm.   CNN explains ...

 

“The trustee had originally sued the Mets owners for $1 billion, but [the judge] threw out the $700 million portion of the lawsuit last year.”

 

The New York Times says that both owners won’t have to pay much, if any, out of pocket.  An analyst tells BusinessWeek this is a weight lifted off of the owners’ shoulders.

 

“It means that Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz can focus their attention on bringing the Mets back to their glory but will now have the wearwithall to do that and none of this overhang, this cloud that’s been hanging around for two full years.”

 

But, ESPN points ou t this doesn’t mean the Mets are completely out of financial trouble.

 

“The Mets still have several debts as an organization. They owe $25 million to Major League Baseball, they have a $40 million bridge loan to Bank of America and several other debts. That means that the Mets will be on austerity for several years regardless of the case."

 

According to Forbes , the court ruled Katz and Saul don’t need to pay the money back for another three years.