Business

Greenwich pillage

(AP)

The onetime toast of Greenwich society was tossed on the grill yesterday — accused of being part of a group of hedge fund executives that pocketed $1 billion in Bernie Madoff profits.

Walter Noel, the founder of formerly high-flying hedge fund Fairfield Greenwich, personally pocketed as much as $114 million of wrongfully rung-up Madoff profits, according to the new, blockbuster charges filed by Irving Picard, the trustee in charge of cleaning up the mess left by Ponzi King Madoff.

In a move that dramatically turns up the heat on Noel, the former socialite and jet-setter, Picard claims Noel and other brass at the hedge fund “purposefully turned a blind eye” to Madoff’s shenanigans and used ill-gotten gains from the $7 billion in client funds they invested with the fraudster to fuel a lavish lifestyle.

That lifestyle includes a $4.2 million Greenwich mansion, a posh $9.4 million Southampton summer home and an 18,000-square-foot villa, Yemanja, in Mustique.

Picard is even going after $2.5 million in retirement funds Noel had withdrawn from his account. That money, according to the complaint filed yesterday in Manhattan Bankruptcy Court, is also tied to Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

If successful in proving that Noel did know about the Madoff scam, Picard could force the sales of these assets to recoup the money for Madoff victims.

“Every dollar the defendants purportedly ‘earned,’ and every dollar they kept to unjustly enrich themselves, was stolen money,” Picard said in court papers.

Picard, who originally sued Fairfield Greenwich in May 2009, also hit Jeff Tucker, Noel’s former business partner; Noel’s eldest daughter, Corina; her yachting husband, Andres Piedrahita; two other sons-in-law and 13 others. All are accused of multiple counts of fraud.

Fairfield Greenwich, in a statement, called the amended complaint “replete with false, misleading and rehashed accusations.” The firm also called the filing “incomprehensible” at a time when the parties were “in the midst of constructive, good-faith negotiations” with Picard.

“The filing can only add further delay and expense to the considerable costs already incurred by all parties, including the trustee,” Fairfield said in the statement.

Picard says Noel and his main business partner Tucker, a former SEC attorney, each wrongfully earned $114 million in partnership distributions from 2002-08, in addition to salaries and bonuses.

Tucker, Picard charges, was “acutely aware of many facts and red flags” but chose instead his “prized racehorses, private jets, and luxurious mansions.”

Tucker has been trying to sell his massive upstate New York horse farm, Stone Bridge Farms, for $10 million — down from its original $18 million pricetag. kwhitehouse@nypost.com