16% minus attorney fees

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Is better than zero... In 2008, our stock broker was up in the Sacramento area, and came by for a visit. He talked to the ex about a new investment for our IRA accounts. It was a real estate deal. Buy property, fix it up and rent it, eventually sell it. I felt a little uncertain about it, but didn't listen to myself, and signed. The ex was all for it, and he signed too. Fast forward a few years, and the fund stopped communicating with us. Our broker tried to get answers from the fund manager, but didn't get much. Eventually we discovered that the money hadn't been used to buy property. It was loaned out to distressed property owners as second mortgages. Every single one of those properties was foreclosed by the first mortgage holder. Come to find out that the bank that administered the fund was also the first mortgage holder on the largest of the foreclosed properties. This bank was taken over by the FDIC. Because the FDIC took over the bank that perpetrated the fraud, the fund decided to sue the FDIC. Two years ago it was in mediation, and I was hearing we might get something like 10 cents on the dollar. I've heard very little since other than that the case was still active. I got a recent communication that the FDIC has offered 1.6 million, which amounts to about 16% of the original 10 million (total of what everybody put in, not just us). Sounds like we had probably better take it, and I'm surprised at this point that there's a chance of getting anything back. That was half of my retirement money, so ouch. Just like the Wall Street crash of 2008, not one banker went to jail.