A former Greenwich hedge fund manager linked to the Bernard Madoff scandal is dead of an apparent suicide.
According to multiple sources, Charles Murphy, formerly of Fairfield Greenwich Group located here in Greenwich, was found dead on the fourth floor terrace of the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan.
Mr. Murphy whose Fairfield Greenwich Group invested $7 billion in Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, jumped 20 stories to his death at about 5:00pmon Monday night.
Sued by investors who lost money, the company ultimately agreed to settle a lawsuit for $80 million, according to Madoff Recovery Initiative, who say that as of March 24, 2017, the Securities Investor Protection Act Trustee had recovered approximately $11.590 billion,roughly 66 percent of the estimated $17.5 billion in principal lost in the scheme.
At the time of his death, Murphy was employed by Paulson & Company, an investment management firm with about 125 employees in New York, London and Hong Kong.
In a February article, Bloomberg reported that, unlike Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates, which earned almost $5 billion for clients in 2016, Paulson & Company, famous for betting billions against subprime mortgages before the financial crisis, lost about $3 billion.
Madoff, 78, is currently serving a 150 year sentence in federal prison in North Carolina. He was arrested in December 2008 for running the world’s biggest Ponzi scheme, defrauding investors of $20 billion. He pleased guilty to fraud charges.
Murphy is the fourth person connected to Madoff to commit suicide.
In December 2008, Magon de La Villehuchet was found dead in his Madison Avenue office. He had slit his wrist and taken sleeping pills. His company AIA had been duped for $1.5 billion, including his own personal fortune, from Madoff’s scheme.
A year later, William Foxton, a 65-year-old former Army major who had lost his arm in combat, shot himself in the head after he too was duped by Madoff.
Madoff’s son Mark, 46, hanged himself in 2010 on the second anniversary of his father’s arrest.