After $16 million payment, Mets owners will defer another $45 million owed from Madoff's Ponzi scheme

NEW YORK -- The family that owns the New York Mets plans to make an initial payment of $16 million by Wednesday to return profits from Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. But a recent revision of the original court settlement defers another $45 million owed, which should give the Wilpon family more maneuverability to operate the team and its other businesses without being cash-strapped.

Under the original 2012 court settlement, the sides stipulated that the Wilpons lost $176.6 million in certain Madoff funds while making $162 million from other funds.

The Mets owners originally agreed to make payments in 2016 and 2017 to return the $162 million profit -- with one major wrinkle:

Through lawsuits and other means, a court-appointed trustee has made significant progress in recovering money for the Ponzi scheme's victims. And since the Wilpons lost money in certain funds, they were allowed to reduce their settlement by whatever principal was recovered from their funds that were not profitable.

Right now, the figure owed is down to $61 million from the original $162 million.

That's because the trustee has recovered more than 57 cents on the dollar of principal for Madoff investors who lost money. So the Wilpons can get a credit of roughly 57 percent of the $176.6 million in principal they lost from some funds before having to pay back the $162 million.

Because the court-appointed Madoff trustee is still recovering money from other parties that profited, which will further reduce the amount owed by the Wilpons, the trustee agreed to defer some of the Wilpons' obligation at 3.5 percent interest.

That's a major victory for the Mets owners, because the original agreement would have reduced their liquidity and perhaps compromised their ability to operate the team without restraint.

The original agreement called for a payment of $23.3 million by June 1 with the remainder due in exactly one year.

The new agreement calls for a payment of $16 million by June 1. After the further reductions based on money recovered by the trustee from other profiteers, whatever is still owed will be repaid with interest in annual installments from 2017 to 2020.

The trustee estimates that will generate about $2.2 million in interest payments.