An executive whose former hedge fund invested $7 billion in Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme jumped 20 stories to his death from a high-rise Manhattan hotel, police said.
Charles Murphy was found dead on the fourth-floor terrace of the Sofitel hotel on Monday, according to a police source.
“We are extremely saddened by this news,” said John Paulson, the president of Paulson & Co., a separate hedge fund where Murphy worked at the time of his death. “Charles was an extremely gifted and brilliant man, a great partner and a true friend.”
Murphy once worked for Fairfield Greenwich, which invested about $7 billion with Madoff and was later sued by investors who lost money. The fund agreed to an $80 million settlement.
Madoff was arrested in December 2008 for running the world’s largest Ponzi scheme and defrauding investors of $20 billion. He pleaded guilty to fraud charges. Now 78, he is serving 150 years in a federal prison in North Carolina.
One of Madoff’s two sons, Mark, hanged himself on the second anniversary of his father’s arrest.
“I was responsible for my son Mark’s death, and that’s very, very difficult,” Madoff later told CNNMoney from prison. “I live with that.”
Shortly after Madoff’s arrest, a French businessman whose firm lost $1.4 billion to Madoff’s Ponzi scheme killed himself at his desk in his Manhattan office.