New York Mets Mess: Bernie Madoff Says Wilpons Didn't Know

The implications from the Bernie Madoff scandal have been hanging over the Mets' heads for many months at this point.

The Wilpons have been named in a lawsuit by Irving Picard, the trustee responsible for recovering funds from those who made illicit profits.

It has widely been thought that the Wilpons and Saul Katz had at least some knowledge of what Madoff was actually doing. However, there has been recent news that points to the contrary.

In an article written for The New York Times, David G. Friehling talks about his recent interview with Mr. Madoff. Madoff said that there were some bankers that knew of his actions but chose to look the other way. When Madoff was asked about the Wilpons and Katz, however, he said, “They knew nothing. They knew nothing.”

One of the more interesting things to note is in ESPN’s Outside the Lines segment on the Mets and Madoff mess, it was noted how much the Mets mean to Fred Wilpon. As a close friend of Wilpon, Madoff surely was aware of this. Could this possibly be a last-ditch effort for Madoff to show compassion to his old friend? If the size of the lawsuit drops from $1 billion to $300 million, the Wilpons may not need to sell a sizable stake in the team.

The other possibility is that the Wilpons sincerely did not know what Madoff was doing. I’ve outlined why this was difficult to believe early on in this saga. Nonetheless, the next few months will be tumultuous for the Wilpons. As they ready themselves to watch the team they’ve built attempt to compete for the World Series championship this season, they may be doing so knowing that they will not be the team's owners when this happens.

It is too early to tell what to make of Madoff’s claim. As more and more information becomes publicly available about the case, we will know more about what truly happened between the Wilpons and Madoff. In the end it may turn out that they were complicit in his scheme, or it is completely possible that they were cheated out of hundreds of millions of dollars and their team by a man they considered to be a close family friend.