Madoff family to be sued over Ponzi scheme

Several members of Bernard Madoff's family are set to be sued for $198 million, according to the trustee who is winding down Madoff's company.

Trustee Irving Picard told CBS News that Madoff's brother, his two sons and a niece all held executive positions within the firm and should have known about the 20-year Ponzi scheme.

Bernard Madoff is currently serving a 150-year prison sentence after he admitted to masterminding the multi-billion dollar fraud, which saw investors paid with the money of new clients.

Mr Picard said the lawsuits filed against the Madoff family members accused them of negligence, breach of fiduciary duty and profiting personally from the crime.

"Whether or not they have a criminal problem we will pursue them as far as we can pursue them," he said.

"And if that leads to bankrupting them - then that's what will happen."

He estimated that around $18 billion of investors' money remained unrecovered.

Victims of the Ponzi scheme included director Steven Spielberg and talk show host Larry King.

Madoff's wife Ruth has been named in one of the 13 other lawsuits that Mr Picard and his lawyers have launched in an attempt to recover around $15 billion of the stolen funds.

But only $1.5 billion of the stolen money has been recovered so far.