AP Source: Madoff trustee gets $7B settlement

NEW YORK (AP) — The trustee recovering money for Bernard Madoff's burned investors has reached a $7.2 billion settlement with the estate of a Florida philanthropist and businessman who had been the single-largest beneficiary of the fraud.

Court-appointed trustee Irving Picard planned an announcement today in Manhattan about the estate of Jeffry Picower, who drowned after suffering a heart attack in the swimming pool of his Palm Beach, Fla., mansion on Oct. 25, 2009.

The amount of the settlement was not immediately made public, but the figure was provided to The Associated Press by a person familiar with the civil case against the estate. The person was not authorized to speak publicly about the settlement and spoke on condition of anonymity.

A recovery of that size would mean that a sizeable number of Madoff's victims could get at least half of their money back - a remarkable turnaround for people and institutions that thought two years ago that they had lost everything.

A spokeswoman for the estate had no immediate comment.