BUFFALO - The alleged architect of a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme wants to work with the government to see his investors repaid, his lawyers said Tuesday, but a prosecutor doubted there will be enough money to go around.

The federal government last week froze the assets of 82-year-old Richard Piccoli and his Gen-See Capital Corp. after investigators could find no evidence that he was investing clients' funds in real estate, as he claimed.

Instead, they said, he was using new investors' funds to repay earlier clients in classic Ponzi fashion.

Authorities have only just begun to calculate how much of the $17 million they believe Piccoli took in since 2004 may be missing.

Piccoli investors have been lighting up investigators' phone lines “in overwhelming quantities,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Gretchen Wylegala said after the second of two procedural hearings in federal court Tuesday.

She said about 250 people are believed to have been affected, and that while authorities have seized some assets from Piccoli, it is probably not enough to cover what is due.

“There's going to be a shortfall of some sort,” she said.