Bankruptcy lawyers unwinding the Woodbridge Group of Cos. Ponzi scheme say it will take until the first quarter of 2019 to get the first checks in the mail to burned investors, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The California company filed for chapter 11 protection about a year ago, with the Securities and Exchange Commission in hot pursuit. Weeks after the bankruptcy filing, Woodbridge and its founder, Robert Shapiro, were accused of civil fraud. Both eventually settled with the SEC, but the securities fraud accusations ended Shapiro’s influence in the bankruptcy case. Bankruptcy and real-estate professionals took over and are shutting down the company while collecting cash to pay off thousands of people, many of them elderly. Woodbridge investors were expecting to collect the first round of checks before the end of this year, partial repayment on hundreds of millions of dollars they plunged into what they were assured was a safe investment.
