The owners of the New York Mets are set to ask a judge today to end a $386 million lawsuit by the Bernard Madoff brokerage trustee without a trial, saying he hasn’t proved they ignored the fraud because it benefited their business. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff threw out most of Madoff trustee Irving Picard’s $1 billion lawsuit against the baseball team’s owners last year, saying he could pursue only $386 million at a trial set to start March 19 in Manhattan federal court. To get most of the money, Rakoff said Picard must prove the defendants, including Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, were willfully blind to Madoff’s crimes, which Picard has said cost investors about $20 billion in principal. More on Bloomberg Businessweek here.
