Who else, but Ponzi Maestro Bernie Madoff, could turn the New York Mets baseball team into a winner?  Actually, it's the Mets owners, and they're only "Net Winners," in the words of Madoff Trustee Irving Picard.  Got the picture?  Here are the details.

Mr. Picard on Tuesday sued the Wilpon family, the owners of the New York Mets, who invested $523 million with Bernie & Co., but withdrew some $571 million - netting $48 in "profits."  Sterling Equities, the Wilpon-controlled company that owns the Mets, was named as a defendant in the case along with its partners, their family members and certain related trusts and entities.  Mr. Wilpon and his family own Sterling - and the Mets - along with his longtime business partner, Saul Katz.  Sterling and its related entities had dozens of investment accounts with Mr. Madoff.

The substance of the trustee’s claims against Sterling are unavailable because the complaint was filed under seal, and the defendants aren't commenting at this time, except to note that ...

the New York Metropolitan Baseball Club "will have all the necessary financial and operational resources to fully compete and win. That is our commitment to our fans and to New York."

Mr. Picard noted that he's in “good-faith negotiations” to settle the claims with Sterling and the other defendants.  As a result, the court ordered to have the complaint filed under seal.

    Quashed Earlier Suspicions.   It was widely speculated that the Wilpons had lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the fraud, but that proved not to be the case. Last October, Picard revealed in a court filing that an account called Mets Limited Partnership put a total of $522.7 million into Madoff accounts and withdrew $570.5, a profit of $47.8 million.  This qualified the Mets account as “net winners” of the Ponzi scheme under the bankruptcy trustee’s calculation. That subjected the account to a potential “clawback” lawsuit that would seek to recover those fake profits and redistribute them to the eligible victims. [NYT Dealbook, 12/7]