More than five years have passed since Irving Picard was first appointed trustee to oversee the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. The New York bankruptcy lawyer and his team have already recovered or entered into agreements to recover nearly $9.795 billion of the approximately $20 billion defrauded from Madoff's investment customers. This week the trustee's office announced that a fourth distribution will pay out another $349 million to the Ponzi scheme victims, bringing total payments to more than $6. You've got to hand it to Picard and his team for aggressively pursuing every possible avenue in this complicated and emotionally fraught matter. Of the total fraud estimate, Picard is looking to recoup as much as he can of $17.5 billion -- the losses by those Madoff customers who filed eligible claims by a July 2009 deadline.