Sonja Kohn has repeatedly denied receiving payments from Bernie Madoff and denied knowing that Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme, telling journalists, “I am his biggest victim”.
A representative of Bank Medici told the JC, “Bank Medici and the Kohn family are victims of Mr Madoff. Both Bank Medici and the Kohn family had substantial investment in the Herald Funds. Bank Medici was active in institutional business and only eight customers of Bank Medici AG were invested in Madoff funds. Their combined total investment is a one digit million Euro sum.
“Bank Medici has suffered a lot in the past months. It became a victim of Madoff and was confronted with false accusations. This and evaluating all legal possibilities in order to gain recovery for the customers generated high costs. Due to the fact that the equity base of Bank Medici went down below euro 5m in May, the Austrian Financial Market Authority redeemed, in accordance with Bank Medici, its banking license. You can see, the company was heavily affected by the fraudulent activities of Mr Madoff and false accusations.”