Man who profited from Madoff wills fortune to charity

New York: A man who made billions of dollars off Bernard Madoff's pyramid scheme has signed a will leaving the bulk of his fortune to charity, but the gift's ultimate size may depend on legal wrangling over how much of the money rightfully belongs to cheated victims.

Jeffry Picower, a prominent philanthropist, drowned after suffering a heart attack in the swimming pool of his Palm Beach, Florida, mansion on October 25.

The trustee unraveling Madoff's financial web said Picower withdrew some $7 billion from his Madoff accounts over the decades, well more than he invested.

That money is now known to have been stolen from other people, and Picower's widow said in a statement this week that the family wished to return some of it through "a fair and generous settlement."