Posted by Sabrina B. @gametimegirl

New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon said the team is “bleeding cash” and could lose $70 million this season, in an interview with Sports Illustrated that was obtained by the New York Daily News.

Wilpon also said that he fears he could lose the Mets if the trustee for victims of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme wins a $1 billion lawsuit against the team and the owner’s other interests.

Wilpon said he is willing to settle based on the $295 million in fictitious profits he earned, but will not settle based on $700 million in principal he and his partners invested with Madoff.

Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo has been mediating talks between Wilpon and the trustee, Irving Picard.

“Gov. Cuomo has not been able to at this stage convince them that the 700 is not going to be obtainable,” Wilpon told the magazine.

Wilpon has been trying to sell a stake in the team to raise much needed cash. The magazine reported that if he can raise $200 million, $25 million will pay back an emergency loan to Major League Baseball; $75 million will be used to pay down team debt of $427 million; and $100 million will go to operating expenses.

According to the magazine, Madoff investments were supposed to offset debt owed to players. When the Mets wanted to get rid of Bobby Bonilla after the 1999 season, they would have owed him $5.9 million. Instead, they decided to invest that money with Madoff at a return of 10 percent to 12 percent.

They would pay Bonilla $1.2 million per year for 25 years, payments based on an annual interest rate of 8 percent. So in theory, had Madoff’s schemes not tanked, a seemingly horrible financial decision would have in fact created a net profit.

Picard, meanwhile, contends that Wilpon has not provided enough documentation outlining the relationship between the Mets and Madoff, according to the New York Times. The trustee claims that the club had 16 accounts with Madoff and invested tens of millions of dollars.

The Wilpon camp counters that it has provided more than 700,000 pages of documentation and there is no evidence that the Mets or any other Wilpon entity knew that Madoff was engaged in fraud.

–ESPN