Madoff Investors Can Expect to Get Back Next to Nothing

Investors who lost their money when they entrusted it to Bernie Madoff are likely to get "pennies on the dollar, if that," according to Stuart Gerson, a lawyer with the national firm Epstein Becker & Green. Experts say that most of this year will be spent tracing Madoff's funds and accounts and that it may up to three years before victim's of his Ponzi scheme begin to received anything. Investors and creditors of Enron, which fell in 2001, were still receiving payments last year. Those with money behind that fallen corporation, possibly Madoff's only rival in financial infamy this decade, received up to 50 cents on the dollar. But while Enron owned businesses with assets that could be liquidated, Madoff's money managing firm has very little in the way of tangible items attached to it. The only person whose furor at Madoff right now might be a notch below his investors is Matt Lauer, Maddoff's neighbor in his Park Avenue building who Radar reports is being driven "bonkers" with all of the attention, yelling at photographers and is "fearful for his kids."