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NEW YORK — The trustee seeking to recover money for investors who lost billions in jailed financier Bernard Madoff’s fraud said Friday that he filed civil racketeering charges against an Austrian banker and 55 other defendants, demanding they give up nearly $20 billion as a penalty for their “criminal relationship” with Madoff.
Court-appointed trustee Irving Picard used tough language to portray a 23-year relationship between banker Sonja Kohn and Madoff, saying she and others engaged in money laundering and fraud. He also accused her of accepting secret kickbacks from Madoff.
“In Sonja Kohn, Madoff found a criminal soul mate, whose greed and dishonest inventiveness equaled his own,” he said.
