“I can’t wait to get back to our businesses, which I love, and the first order of business, the first priority, is getting down to Florida tomorrow, getting to that spring training camp and bringing the Mets back to the prominence our fans deserve,” a clearly relieved Mr. Wilpon said outside federal court in Manhattan . 
 
 Mr. Picard was appointed by a bankruptcy judge in 2008 to recover money for Mr. Madoff’s victims. To date, he has secured some $9 billion — or about half his goal — much of it from Madoff investors he has asserted were unjust beneficiaries of “too good to be true” returns. 
 
 In his lawsuit against Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz, Mr. Picard asserted that the men were sophisticated investors who were among those illegitimate beneficiaries. But Mr. Picard suffered a number of setbacks. The lawsuit was removed from bankruptcy court, and Jed S. Rakoff of the United States District Court, who took over the case, both reduced Mr. Picard’s financial claims and raised the legal bar he would have to clear in order to collect. 
 
 Still, if Mr. Picard had prevailed at trial, he could have recouped as much as $303 million, in addition to the $83 million the Mets’ owners were already ordered to pay. 
 
 His decision to settle for much less was regarded by a number of experts as a kind of surrender on the explosive assertions that were central to the case. Legal experts said the settlement would most likely embolden other defendants who are fighting accusations brought by the trustee. Mr. Picard has filed several large suits that have accused defendants of misconduct, including actions against some of Mr. Madoff’s relatives and one of his primary banks , JPMorgan Chase . The cases make similar bad-faith claims to the one brought against the Mets’ owners. 
 
 “I certainly consider this a capitulation by the trustee,” said Bradley D. Simon, a former federal prosecutor who focuses on white-collar civil litigation for Simon & Partners. “It seems quite one-sided.” 
 
 The Mets, as a baseball operation, still face significant financial trouble. The club has lost some $120 million over the past two years, has had to slash its payroll as attendance has fallen at Citi Field , and has had to put a portion of the team up for sale. 
 
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 But the resolution of the suit, and on such favorable terms, ends an enormous financial threat. 
 
 “That decision removed the defendants from the sword of Damocles hanging over their lives,” Mario M. Cuomo , the former New York governor who was appointed as the mediator in the case in early 2011, said outside the courtroom. “And it will enable them to return to their work, their family and normalcy.” 
 
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 Mr. Cuomo, who has been mediating high-profile disputes for decades, had not appeared to make much progress as the lawsuit, complete with acrimonious filings, ground on. 
 
 But with the case headed for trial, Mr. Cuomo evidently finally made headway. 
 
 About two weeks ago, he reached out to both sides, inviting Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz to his offices at the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher. He suggested to Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz that a trial could be both embarrassing and damaging to their reputations, and in a separate conversations he lobbied the trustee to come to a settlement. 
 
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 “What you do in mediation is recite the realities,” Mr. Cuomo said later in the day during an interview, speaking of his role. “You don’t have to be brilliant. It’s called common sense.” 
 
 The settlement itself underscores how complicated the Madoff bankruptcy has proved to be. 
 
 Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz, as well as their business partners and family members, had hundreds of accounts with Mr. Madoff’s firm when he was arrested in December 2008. 
 
 The trustee had identified many of those account as “net winners” — asserting that the owners of those accounts had over the years withdrawn more money from them than they had put in. He argued that, in fact, those profits were “other people’s money,” and had to be returned. 
 
 Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz contended that they also had scores of accounts that were “net losers,” and they had applied to the very same trustee who was suing them to be reimbursed for those losses. 
 
 The settlement announced Monday amounts to a swap: Mr. Picard dropped the claims that the men had ignored warnings about Mr. Madoff; Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz agreed that they were obligated to pay back $162 million in so-called fictitious profits they had reaped from the net winner accounts from 2002 to ’08. That figure includes the $83 million that Judge Rakoff had earlier ordered them to pay. 
 
 How much of that $162 million the men will ultimately have to pay depends, oddly, on how successful Mr. Picard is in his efforts to recover money for Madoff victims. The Mets’ owners had applied to Mr. Picard to be reimbursed $178 million from their net loser accounts. If Mr. Picard’s recoveries do not yield $162 million after three years, Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz have guaranteed to pay as much as $29 million. 
 
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 What was clear was that Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz used the settlement as vindication of their character. “We acted in good faith and we’re very pleased that this settlement bears that out,” Mr. Wilpon said. 
 
 For the trustee, the settlement appeared to be a business calculation: even if he could win a judgment that Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz were willfully blind to Mr. Madoff’s fraud — and have the verdict upheld on appeals that might take two or three years — he might not have received the $303 million he was seeking. 
 
 “It isn’t whether we win or lose,” David J. Sheehan, chief counsel to the trustee, said. “It’s whether we enhance the fund and help the victims. That’s what we did today, and that’s why we did it.” 
 
 Mr. Sheehan’s remarks Monday conflicted with much tougher ones made 13 months ago, when he said, “What we’re looking for is a billion dollars, and unless we settle for less than that, which we’re not inclined to do, where they get the money is of no moment to us.” 
 
 Mr. Picard might also have had second thoughts about the strength of his case. Judge Rakoff had been skeptical that Mr. Picard could successfully rebut Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz’s claims that they acted in good faith in their investing with Mr. Madoff. 
 
 Still, however strong Sheehan and Picard felt their case was, they could not be certain of victory. 
 
 “Any lawyer who walks into court knows that you can win, you can lose, and you can have the strongest case possible but you don’t know how the evidence will come in or how the jury will perceive the credibility of the witnesses,” said Annemarie McAvoy, a former federal prosecutor who is an adjunct professor at Fordham Law School. She said Mr. Picard “did away with the risk of walking away with nothing at the end of the trial.” 
 
 As he read aloud the terms of the settlement between two parties who had battled each other bitterly for more than a year, Judge Rakoff said, “All I say is love is wonderful.” ||||| WHAT HAPPENED: The owners of the New York Mets have settled with trustee Irving Picard for $162 million, their alleged profit from certain Ponzi scheme funds in the six years before Bernard Madoff's arrest. 
 
 In reality, Fred Wilpon and family will be on the hook for only a fraction of that amount -- and will not be required to make any payments until 2016 and 2017. 
 
 That's because, as part of the settlement, the Wilpons will be able to apply to the trustee to be reimbursed for $178 million in losses from certain funds. Obviously, like any victims of Madoff's Ponzi scheme, they won't recover every dollar. But they will get a certain percentage based on how much the trustee collects overall from net winners -- likely 50 percent or more. 
 
 As a result, the Wilpons' actual payment to Picard -- once the Wilpons' loser funds are reimbursed like other victims -- should be a fraction of the actual $162 million settlement. 
 
 Say if Picard pays to victims 50 cents on the dollars they lost. That means the Wilpons could be credited $89 million (half of $178 million) toward their $162 million owed as a result of the settlement. That's a net of only $73 million remaining to pay Picard to satisfy the settlement. 
 
 Any disbursements owed by Picard to Wilpon loser funds over the next three years will be deducted from the $162 million owed by the Wilpons to Picard in the settlement. The Wilpons then will owe the remaining amount in equal installments in four and five years. 
 
 The lawsuit sought to recover $386 million. Judge Jed S. Rakoff previously had decided that Picard likely was entitled to at least $83.3 million in profits from the two years before Madoff's arrest. 
 
 The original suit was for $1 billion, but it was reduced by Rakoff, who decided that Picard could only recover money from the Wilpons from the immediate two years before Madoff's arrest, not the six years Picard advocated. The settlement, while not overturning Rakoff's decision, does establish for the trustee six years as an acceptable period to recover profits. 
 
 The settlement talks were brokered by former New York governor Mario Cuomo. 
 
 WHAT IT MEANS: It's unlikely the Wilpons would have settled unless they felt they could withstand that financial obligation without jeopardizing their ownership of the team. 
 
 Still, the Wilpons are not out of the woods yet as owners. 
 
 Remember, the Mets still have a ton of debt unrelated to the lawsuit. Among the more immediate obligations are a $40 million bridge loan from Bank of America and $25 million emergency loan from Major League Baseball. UPDATE: The Mets have paid those immediate loan obligations thanks for a $240 million equity infusion from minority investors, many of which had existing ties to the ballclub. 
 
 You can read about the extent of the debt in Part 1 and Part 2 of the financial series from ESPNNewYork.com from late January. 
 
 WHAT'S NEXT: Back to baseball, hopefully. 
 
 Actually, it's going to still be the Mets on austerity for a while, because of the financial obligations mentioned above. That means the Wilpons will be utterly dependent upon fan attendance revenue in order to maintain ownership. 
 
 The Mets eventually hope to sell 10 to 12 minority shares of the team at $20 million apiece, although a good deal of that appears to be shifting around money among Mets-related entities. For instance, two of those shares are going to Jeff Wilpon and Saul Katz, who is Fred Wilpon's brother-in-law and Mets president. Another four will go to SportsNet New York, the regional sports channel primarily owned by the Wilpons/Mets. 
 
 There is only one known minority buyer without direct connection to the Wilpons or Mets. And that's Steve Cohen, who reportedly is the front-runner for majority ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers, which would eliminate him as a Mets candidate. 
 
 Read the ESPNNewYork.com news story here.
– The New York Mets' owners have avoided a trial over what they knew about Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme by settling today with the trustee for Madoff victims for $162 million, the New York Times reports. Trustee Irving Picard had sued Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz for $1 billion (later knocked down to $386 million), saying they disregarded warnings about Madoff's dealings; they claimed ignorance. Much of the $162 million will be balanced by money Katz and Wilpon will receive as "net losers" from the scheme themselves. Katz and Wilpon say they're due $178 million as Madoff victims; they'll get a percentage of whatever Picard can obtain from the beneficiaries of the scheme—money that will include the cash from their own settlement. So what does all this mean for the Mets? Wilpon and Katz probably wouldn't have settled had it put their team ownership at risk, ESPN notes. But the team is still tens of millions of dollars in debt to Bank of America and Major League Baseball, among others. The upshot: For Wilpon and Katz to maintain ownership of the team, they'll be counting on fans' attendance.