NEW YORK -- The trustee for victims of the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme is trying to recover $300 million, and possibly more, in what he calls fake profits from the owners of the New York Mets.

The lawyers for Mets principal owner Fred Wilpon countered that their accounts with Madoff went from $500 million to zero when the scheme was shut down. But trustee Irving Picard claims the Mets had already withdrawn profits and the balance of a fraudulent account doesn't matter.

He also claims that Wilpon and his associates knew or should have known that their gains were ill-gotten and wants victims compensated for that as well.

Lawyers for the Mets say Picard is only looking at funds in which the group withdrew more money than it invested, while other funds lost $160 million, and they have always claimed that they did not know Madoff was committing fraud.

The trustee's demand is made in a complaint ordered unsealed Friday in federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan.

The trustee's complaint names Fred Wilpon, chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon and others connected to the Mets and Sterling Equities as defendants. Lawyers agreed to make it public after settlement talks broke down.

"There are thousands of victims of Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme," the lawsuit reads. "But [Fred Wilpon's brother-in-law and Mets president] Saul Katz is not one of them. Neither is Fred Wilpon. And neither are the rest of the partners at [Wilpon-owned] Sterling Equities ['Sterling'] who, along with Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, are sophisticated investors

who oversee and control Sterling and its many businesses and investments.

"The Sterling partners, their family members, their related trusts, and various entities they own, operate, and control were collectively one of the largest beneficiaries of Madoff's fraud, reaping hundreds of millions in fictitious profits over their quarter-century relationship with Madoff. The Sterling partners, their family members, trusts and Sterling-related entities made so much easy money from Madoff for so long that despite the many objective indicia of fraud before them, the Sterling partners chose to simply look the other way."

The Mets fired back in a statement.

"Contrary to what the Trustee asserts, the returns on the Sterling-related brokerage accounts were not 'staggering, easy money,' or 'too good to be true,'" a statement from the Wilpons' lawyers read. "The $300 million of profit alleged in the complaint, even if accurate, would not be 'staggering' or extraordinary when viewed in the context of the amount of principal invested over the past 25 years.