NYPD: Madoff investor commits suicide in office

ap ^ | 12/23/08 | By ADAM GOLDMAN and TOM HAYS

[Flavius]

NEW YORK – The founder of an investment fund that lost $1.4 billion with Bernard Madoff was discovered dead Tuesday after committing suicide at his Manhattan office, marking a grim turn in a scandal that has left investors around the world in financial ruin.

Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, 65, was found sitting at his desk at about 8 a.m. with both wrists slashed, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. A box cutter was found on the floor along with a bottle of sleeping pills on his desk. No suicide note was found.

De la Villehuchet was one of several fund managers to be hit hard in Madoff's alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme. Investment funds that lost big to Madoff are also facing backlash and investor lawsuits for not protecting their clients from the alleged fraud.

[Flavius]

they need some sort of flat tax silver bullet regulation for stocks

so people dont have to allegedly commit suicide

[4rcane]

AP uses alot of alleged fraud, alleged ponzi scheme, but they’re pretty sure the death was suicide. Not alleged suicide

[Flavius]

50 Billion dollars is a lot of money.

Or was

[durasell]

If they wrote “fraud” instead of alleged fraud, they could be sued for slander. “suicide” could be seen as slanderous, but you can’t sue on behalf of a dead guy. Usually they use the phrase “Apparent suicide.”

[RegulatorCountry]

OK, adjusting my tinfoil hat, this guy was supposed to do what, take a bunch of sleeping pills and then slash his wrists? Why does that not follow, to me? It’s more plausible that he had help, after being drugged.

A couple billion dollars would be a motivation, as would be this man’s apparent weeping remorse. The whole thing, with Madoff’s sons turning him in, struck me as a theatrical calculation, too.

[Dengar01]

and mean while Bernie gets house arrest in his million dollar home, snearing at all his victims.

[Flavius]

must be that magical laissez-faire sprinkling magic dust

[Flavius]

ahm there are more like him out there

[arkady_renko]

[ladyjane]

And all that sweet money, sitting in off-shore accounts, beyond the reach of the IRS.

[Flavius]

well its no problem becuse only 2 % of population pays taxes see

so really the rich are only screwing themselves see

[Spunky]

"OK, adjusting my tinfoil hat, this guy was supposed to do what, take a bunch of sleeping pills and then slash his wrists? Why does that not follow, to me? It’s more plausible that he had help, after being drugged."

I agree. I just don't see a man slashing his own wrists.

[vetvetdoug]

Surely he won't be convicted for modeling an investment firm using the US Congress business plan.

Touche...that's about the most truthful and poignant statement from the whole thread.

[I_like_good_things_too]

Yet they do it all the time. You’re not supposed to understand the mentally ill.

[MinuteGal]

Maybe we're going to start to see the equivalent of the window jumpers in the 1929 financial crash.

This whole Madoff thing is so octopus-like and surreal.....with more to come, I'm afraid.....involving BIG names here and in Europe, maybe the Middle East.

It's like a horror movie slowly unfolding, blood and all.

Leni