If you noticed, it was Wilpon’s legal team who fought back. You don’t think the folk at Davis Polk Wardell knew what they were doing when they piped up? Do you really think they thought Picard would be more likely to settle if they criticized him? They full well knew what they were doing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if talks had already broken down prior to the legal team speaking to the Daily News reporters yesterday.

There’s one thing that’s more important than money, and that’s a person’s good reputation. Even if the Wilpons lose on the money front in a court battle, they will still be very rich.

Madoff trustee tells judge that settlement talks w/Mets owners are off and to unseal the case after lawyers spoke on record to me—
darren rovell (@darrenrovell) February 03, 2011

A reading of the indisputable facts which have been reported up to now … and my knowledge of the franchise and its ownership from having followed the team closely as a fan over the last 20 years or so.

And your basis for this is …?

It is not really relevant what the Mets did with their deferred money BEFORE the Madoff scam fell apart (ie, the Cashen money owed which by the time of the scandal in 2008 was no longer on the books). The only question that is relevant to the “team” is what their exposure in Madoff was at the exact time he was arrested. Did the Mets (vs. Sterling Equities) have significant investments with Madoff at that point in time? Even if you take at face value the negative spin that the you and the NYT’s put on the information revealed in their article yesterday, it’s not clear. The deferred money of a few players is a mere pittance — chump change — in relation to the overall finances of a team like the Mets. Now you have the Daily News article which seems to question even those small investments being with Madoff at the end of 2008. According to them, those monies “have not been associated with Madoff accounts for SEVERAL YEARS.” Granted, it’s not clear the monies were actually separate at the time the scheme fell apart, but it implies they were.

No one has ever questioned whether the Wilpons or even the Mets had lots of investments with Madoff at least IN THE PAST. As soon as the scandal broke back in 2008, it was widely reported that Wilpons and Sterling Equities had hundreds of accounts invested with Madoff. That is not new news, though the NYT’s has recently tried to paint it as such and sensationalize it.

Again, the ONLY question which has been relevant to the Mets (and the larger baseball community) is what was the exposure of the TEAM itself at the time the scam fell apart.

As for your quotes, the Times stuff talked about what the Mets did with their deferred money before. The “100% clear” stuff talks about current status. That does not mean that the Mets were not investing deferred money in Madoff accounts at one time, and the News story even admits this. That is evidence that the Wilpons were deeply connected to Madoff in terms of their investments (it does not mean that they were in cahoots with his scam, of course). The point, however, that the team had many connections to Madoff investments is undeniable.

Craig, just about every point I tried to make to you yesterday was echoed in the two Daily News articles — the one by Lupica and the other by Thompson & O’Keefe — over the last 24 hours. You accused me of being naive or only wanting to hear good news and I told you all I wanted was the facts without spin. So if you think I had my own bias and naivety, then you have to accuse Lupica and Thompson & O’Keefe of of the same bias and naivety since they have taken the same position as I did. You can call me biased and naive all you want if it puts me in the same company as Lupica, Thompson and O’Keefe.

Something else that the Daily News article corrected which you failed to note today, and which I was arguing about yesterday –

The NYT’s hatchet-job article painted the Mets money and business as being closely intertwined and that was the jumping off point for your article yesterday and part of the basis for your calling Wilpon dishonest. Well in the Daily News, Thompson and O’Keefe essentially say that that portrayal by the NYT’s was inaccurate. Here is the salient quote:

“The News reported Sunday that some deferred money from player contracts may have been invested with Madoff but that those deferred payments are not in jeopardy and have not been associated with Madoff accounts for several years. Major League Baseball requires an accounting by each team of its total deferred compensation in July of each year and the Mets have satisfied that requirement, according to a baseball source familiar with deferred money issues. “Their accounts are segregated,” said the source. “They’re 100% clear.”"

So there is a lot to take issue with the NYT’s article that you based your column on yesterday. As I said, I had a problem with both that article and your using that article as a jumping off point to smear the Wilpons/Katz yourself.

Bottom line is that what Picard alleges in the lawsuit in terms of any complicity in the scheme is false. If he had evidence the Wilpons knew of the scheme as it was going on, criminal charges would have been brought against them by now.