The body of a Palm Beach billionaire who was the biggest beneficiary of Bernard Madoff’s record-setting fraud was found yesterday at the bottom of his swimming pool.

Jeffry Picower, 67, a longtime Madoff friend, was being sued for the return of $7.2 billion in allegedly bogus profits made from the disgraced financier’s pyramid scheme while others lost their life savings.

Picower’s wife, Barbara, and a maid found his body at the bottom of the pool at his salmon-coloured mansion, known as Casa del Sud, in the exclusive Florida retreat. The two women pulled him from the water and sought help. Rescue workers tried for 20 minutes to revive him.

A fire brigade spokesman said Mr Picower’s pulse returned as he was rushed into the emergency room, but he died shortly after. Police are investigating the death as a drowning and will perform a post-mortem examination and toxicology tests. Mr Picower's lawyers said last night that he drowned because of a "massive heart attack."

Mr Picower, a former New York lawyer and accountant who had been a friend of Madoff for decades, became a prominent philanthropist with big gifts to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Human Rights First and the New York Public Library. His Picower Foundation funded diabetes research at Harvard Medical School. He came under intense scrutiny after the collapse of the scheme for which Madoff is now serving 150 years in prison.

Irving Picard, the Madoff bankruptcy trustee, who is seeking lost assets, sued Mr Picower and his wife in May for their alleged $7.2 billion profits. Investigators allege that Mr Picower regularly instructed Madoff to credit specific gains to his accounts to enable him to withdraw billions over the past three decades.

Mr Picower said he had no knowledge of Madoff’s fraud. The Picower Foundation, which had $1 billion in Madoff's pyramid scheme, said it was forced to shut. But court papers filed by the bankruptcy trustee say Mr Picower’s claims to be a victim ring hollow because he withdrew more of other investors’ money than anyone else.

Mr Picard says that Mr Picower, as a sophisticated investor, should have realised that the 950 per cent gains he received were ill gotten.

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