Judge Jed S. Rakoff on Thursday evening has approved the settlement agreement between Mets owner Fred Wilpon, brother-in-law Saul Katz and their family and trustee Irving Picard, who is charged with recovering money for victims of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme.

The formality cements previously agreed upon terms.

The family agreed to repay $162.7 million in profits from certain Madoff investments made over a six-year period. But the Wilpons will never pay anything close to that amount.

That's because the Wilpons can apply to the trustee like other victims to recover $177.6 million in losses from other Madoff investments -- and deduct whatever is recovered from the amount owed in the settlement. The Wilpons, like other victims, will not receive 100 percent of their loss claim, but they likely will recover more than half.

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