Hedge Fund Mogul Who Was Scammed By Bernie Madoff Leaps To His Death From Luxury New York Hotel

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The number of people connected to Bernie Madoff to commit suicide following the largest financial fraud in U.S. history has risen to four.

Charles Murphy, a hedge fund manager who lost billions of his clients’ money to Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, leaped to his death from the luxury Sofitel hotel in midtown Manhattan at 4:42 pm on Monday.

The 56-year-old father of two was still wearing a business suit when he plunged to his death from the 24th floor, landing on the fourth floor terrace, shattering the concrete tiles. He was pronounced dead on impact. Murphy was renting a room at the Sofitel at the time even though he owned a $36million townhouse just 20 blocks away on the Upper East Side. The townhouse has eight bedrooms, 11 fireplaces, two elliptical staircases, a gym, and a wine cellar.

Murphy, a Harvard Law School and MIT Sloan School of Management graduate, infused $7 billion in Madoff’s Ponzi scheme while he was the head honcho for hedge fund Fairfield Greenwich.

In December 2013, Fairfield Greenwich settled a class action suit for $80.2million, according to a website for Madoff’s victims. They were sued for failing to protect investor assets, according to Daily Mail.

A parking attendant at a nearby garage said Murphy’s wife, Annabella Murphy, crashed their Honda Odyssey last summer but could not afford to fix it.

“She didn’t even have enough money to pay for the damage,” the attendant said.

Madoff has left a wake of collateral damage as we come up on the 10 year anniversary of the scheme being uncovered. Madoff’s eldest son, Mark, was found hanged in his Soho apartment in December 2010, the second anniversary of his father’s arrest. Investors William Foxton, a 65-year-old former Army major, and Rene Thierry Magon De La Villehuchet, a French aristocrat, both committed suicide following the scheme due to the shame of going bankrupt.

[h/t Daily Mail]

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Matt’s love of writing was born during a sixth grade assembly when it was announced that his essay titled “Why Drugs Are Bad” had taken first prize in D.A.R.E.’s grade-wide contest. The anti-drug people gave him a $50 savings bond for his brave contribution to crime-fighting, and upon the bond’s maturity 10 years later, he used it to buy his very first bag of marijuana.