[ by Melanie Gretchen] Madoff firm trustee Irving Picard has won a 2nd payment to former clients of what the NY Times once called "the perpetrator of the largest financial fraud in U.S. history." With $1.1 billion already in the hands of former clients, Mr. Picard last month sought the approval of a second distribution from U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Burton Lifland in Manhattan.  That payment could reach $2.4 billion. Since Mr. Picard was appointed trustee in December 2008, Madoff, now 79, pled guilty to 11 counts of fraud in March 2009, for which he is currently serving a 150-year sentence.  The victims lost about $20 billion from the fraud, the trustee calculated, by measuring the difference between the amounts that customers deposited and the amounts they withdrew from the Madoff firm before the fraud was uncovered in December 2008. Although the second distribution will not satisfy some customers who wanted recoveries based on their final account statements even if the amounts shown were made up, the new distribution may succeed in boosting the mini-market of trading in the rights to any potential recoveries.  Much of what has been recovered by Mr. Picard has been put in reserve because of pending litigation. The case: Securities Investor Protection Corp v Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 08-ap-01789. For further details, go to [Reuters, 8/23/12], [NY Times, 10/27/11], and [WSJ, 8/23/12].