Irving Picard, the trustee tasked with recovering assets from the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, says part of the $10 million he has recovered so far will likely soon be distributed. Picard and chief counsel David Sheehan said they will  make a request of a federal bankruptcy court to allow the distribution.

The rest of the $10 billion, however, is being held up by investor disputes; two lawsuits have been filed over Picard's distribution plans. In particular, some are disputing the way Picard aims to allocate the funds he recovered from Barbara Picower, the widow of Jeff Picower, who was said to be a massive beneficiary of the Ponzi scheme before he died in 2009.

Overall, of the 16,269 claims filed with Picard, only 2,408 claims worth a total of $6.58 billion have been deemed eligible for compensation so far, CNNMoney notes. Most of the rejected claims came from "third party" investors who bought in via hedge funds instead of individual investors covered by SIPC.

At his press conference, Picard also confirmed his legal team indeed interviewed Madoff himself in prison.

While Madoff has claimed that he helped his victims recover assets, Sheehan says Madoff merely served as a source who confirmed what they had already pieced together. Madoff of course is not the most reliable of witnesses, even about his own fraud.  

For more:
- here's the CNNMoney article

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