The court-appointed trustee hunting for money to pay investors who lost billions of dollars in Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme has sued more than two dozen entities related to a New York-based hedge fund.

Trustee Irving Picard filed papers in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan late Tuesday to recover $3.6 billion that he said can be traced to the Fairfield Greenwich Group, two dozen affiliates and its founding partners.

The filing added numerous defendants to a lawsuit that earlier named three Fairfield Greenwich funds.

Fairfield Greenwich in a statement said Picard's filing was filled with "false, misleading and rehashed accusations."