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Title: Madoff Son Found Dead in NYC in Apparent Suicide
Source:
Associated Press
URL Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101211/ap_on_bi_ge/us_madoff_son
Published: Dec 11, 2010
Author: COLLEEN LONG, Associated Press
Post Date: 2010-12-11 12:32:40 by Murron
Keywords: None
Views: 1237
Comments: 10
Madoff Son Found Dead in NYC in Apparent Suicide COLLEEN LONG, Associated Press NEW YORK – The eldest son of disgraced financier Bernard Madoff hanged himself by a dog leash in his apartment Saturday after two years of "unrelenting pressure" following his father's arrest in a multibillion-dollar fraud that enveloped the entire family, law enforcement officials and a family attorney said. Mark Madoff was found hanging from a ceiling pipe in the living room of his SoHo loft apartment on Saturday, the second anniversary of Madoff's arrest in a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that swindled thousands of investors of their life savings, two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press. His 2-year-old son was sleeping in the next bedroom, the officials said. Mark Madoff, who reported his father to authorities the day after he confessed his fraud to them, has never been criminally charged in the investigation that has snared a half-dozen Madoff employees. He and his brother Andrew have said they were unaware of their father's crimes. But they have been remained under investigation and been named in multiple investor lawsuits. Mark Madoff's lawyer, Martin Flumenbaum, said the 46-year-old had taken his own life Saturday. "This is a terrible and unnecessary tragedy," Flumenbaum said in a written statement. "Mark was an innocent victim of his father's monstrous crime who succumbed to two years of unrelenting pressure from false accusations and innuendo." The law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly about the death, said that Mark Madoff's wife Stephanie, who is in Florida with another son, became concerned about her husband after he sent an e-mail to her Friday night or early Saturday morning that someone should check on the 2-year-old child with him. She asked her father to check on the home, where he found Madoff's body; the child was sleeping in a bedroom unharmed. A dog was also found in the apartment, the officials said. Bernard Madoff, 72, swindled a long list of investors out of billions of dollars. He admitted that he ran his scheme for at least two decades, cheating thousands of individuals, charities, celebrities and institutional investors. Losses are estimated at around $20 billion, making it the biggest investment fraud in U.S. history. He was arrested on Dec. 11, 2008, after confessing his crimes to his family. The scandal put a harsh light on members of the family. The financier's brother, Peter, played a prominent role in the family's company. Mark and Andrew Madoff both worked on a trading desk at the firm, on a side of the business that wasn't directly involved in the Ponzi scheme. In February, Mark Madoff's wife petitioned a court to change her last name and the last names of their two children, saying her family had gotten threats and was humiliated by the scandal. A year ago, the court-appointed trustee trying to unravel Madoff's financial affairs sued several relatives, including Peter, Mark and Andrew, accusing them of failing to detect the fraud while living lavish lifestyles financed with the family's ill-gotten fortune. The lawsuit accused Mark Madoff of using $66 million he received improperly to buy luxury homes in New York City, Nantucket and Connecticut. A call to Bernard Madoff's attorney was not immediately returned Saturday. Calls to the FBI and U.S. Attorney's office were also not immediately returned. Previously, spokespeople for the brothers had repeatedly denied that they had any knowledge of their father's crimes. Bernard Madoff is serving a 150-year prison sentence in North Carolina after admitting the fraud in late 2008 to his family and later the FBI. Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Traci Billingsley said Saturday she didn't have specific information on whether Bernie Madoff had been informed of his son's death or would be allowed to attend a service. In general, she said, inmates are informed of a relative's death as soon as the institution is made aware of it and the bureau does allow furloughs for prisoners to attend memorial services. A police officer stood guard in the lobby of Madoff's 12-story luxury loft apartment in SoHo Saturday morning. An official from the medical examiner's office arrived in a van Saturday morning. The medical examiner will determine the cause of death. ___
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SOU RCE In dire early morning emails to his wife, Madoff wrote that he was ready to end a high-flying life of privilege that hit rock bottom after his father's Dec. 11, 2008, arrest - exactly two years earlier. "It basically sounded like he couldn't take it anymore," a source familiar with the emails told the Daily News. "At one point he said something like, 'You'll have a better life if I'm not around ...I love you.'" Madoff - wearing khaki pants, a dark blue pullover shirt and white socks - knotted the black leash around a steel pole in a lighting rack on the living room ceiling, a police source indicated. His lifeless body was discovered by his father-in-law, well-known lawyer Martin London, at 7:27 a.m. after a phone call from Madoff's alarmed wife. Stephanie Morgan - who changed her name from Madoff earlier this year - feared something terrible was imminent. She was vacationing at Disney World with their 4-year-old daughter. Their 2-year-old boy Nicholas was sleeping peacefully inside another room at the home on Mercer St., a century-old brownstone where the neighbors included rocker Jon Bon Jovi. The family's pet labradoodle, Grouper, was also in the condo. The humiliated Madoff wrote his wife that their family "would be better off without 'this' hanging over them all, forever," a source said. "He all but said he was going to kill himself." The 46-year-old investment scion's body was brought out on a stretcher at 12:22 p.m., finally free from the cloud of suspicion that hung above his head. His imprisoned dad, Bernard Madoff, received word of the tragedy inside a federal prison in North Carolina. Although Mark was never charged with any crimes in the Ponzi scheme, there was rampant speculation that he and brother Andrew were aware of the staggering scope of their father's scam. The NYPD sought warrants yesterday to check Madoff's phone and computer - standard procedure in suicide investigations, a source said. The Securities and Exchange Commission is also seeking the records. 'Innocent victim' The blood of the son was unquestionably on the hands of his father, according to Mark Madoff's lawyer. "Mark was an innocent victim of his father's monstrous crime, who succumbed to two years of unrelenting pressure from false accusations and innuendo," said attorney Martin Flumenbaum. "We are all deeply saddened by this shocking turn of events." Madoff, who hadn't spoken with his father or mother since the family's massive financial betrayal became public in 2008, was struggling with mounting emotional and legal problems. The latest blow came last week, when Mark Madoff's three children (he had one child by a previous wife) were sued by Irving Picard - the trustee responsible for repaying thousands of duped investors. "His mental state has been shaken, and we've noticed he's been depressed," said a source close to Mark Madoff. "He's been increasingly distraught...His children - Bernie's grandchildren - were named in lawsuits. It was too much for him to take." A separate source said the raft of news stories - including a front-page piece in yesterday's Wall Street Journal - generated by the second-year anniversary of his dad's arrest showed him "he was never going to get out from under" the shadow of the scandal. Mark Madoff was sued last year for $66 million in ill-gotten gains that financed every aspect of his jet-setting lifestyle. Court papers indicated he earned a fortune working at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities: nearly $34 million in salary and bonuses in 2006, and more than $9 million the next year. Picard called the suicide "a tragic development...my sympathy goes out to Mark Madoff's family." One day before his body was discovered, a cheery Madoff stopped by the garage where he parked his 2008 black Land Rover to drop off his annual Christmas card and a $400 tip. "He didn't seem upset when he gave us the card and the money," said attendant Anthony Diaz, 37, adding that Madoff typically delivered his holiday gift on Dec. 20. Hours later, lot employee Juvenal Santiago spotted Madoff walking his dog. "He didn't seem depressed or angry," said Santiago, 42. The 72-year-old Bernard Madoff, serving a 150-year prison term in Butner, N.C., was officially notified of the death by the federal Bureau of Prisons. For Madoff to attend his son's funeral, the scammer would need to make an application for a staff-escorted trip, said prisons spokeswoman Traci Billingsley, and the warden and staff would need to approve his bid. Madoff's lawyer, Ira Lee Sorkin, called the death "a great tragedy at many levels." He declined to say if he was in contact with his client after the suicide. Mark's mother, Ruth, was "heartbroken" by the loss of her first-born boy, according to her attorney, Peter Chavkin. Mark Madoff joined his father's crooked business in 1986, although he worked on a side of the operation separate from the decades-old Ponzi scheme. A law enforcement source said Mark Madoff was increasingly unnerved about the possibility of joining his father behind bars. "The son knew he was in the cross hairs," the source said. "At first he thought he would somehow skate, but once [the trustee recovering assets for investors] detailed the family theft, he knew his time was limited."
Swindled Stars: Madoff's High-Profile Victims Baseball great Sandy Koufax is on the list of investors thrown curveballs by the $50B scheme. Koufax is pals with the Wilpon family, which owns the Mets and lost billions in the alleged scam. Actor John Malkovich, seen here in September of 2008, is also among those named on a new list of Madoff clients . . . as is the estate of late singer-songwriter John Denver. We bet Kevin Bacon wishes he'd kept six degrees of separation between himself and Bernard Madoff. The actor suffered losses in Bernie's alleged Ponzi scheme, according to USA Today. It's gonna take a lot of makeup to cover the scars inflicted on L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt by swindler Bernard Madoff. The billionaire heiress invested (and lost!) a pile of loot in Madoff's alleged scam, according to Bloomberg News. Oh, Kyra, if only you could have employed those mighty detective skills we've seen on The Closer before you invested all those dollars with Madoff. The actress saw her portfolio take a dive after investing in Madoff's alleged Ponzi scheme, according to USA Today. Alexandra Penney, former editor of Self magazine, lost her life savings in Madoff's alleged scam, according to the Huffington Post. She's pissed, and letting the world know it. She says the following about Madoff: "Repulsive is mild. Loathsome. It's a visceral feeling. This is not humanity; this is not a human being. This is, again, it's a sociopath." It had already been a rough year for Eliot Spitzer, complete with a prostition scandal and a resignation from his position as governor. And ol' Spitzy just couldn't catch a break. He got tied up in Bernard Madoff's Ponizi scheme and lost a bunch of money, according to CNN. Our advice to Spitzer: keep it in your pants (your wallet, that is!). New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon probably thought he was going to hit the ball out of the park by investing with Madoff. But it was more like a big fat strike, as Wilpon lost loot in the alleged scheme. Producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, famous for movies like Shrek and The Little Mermaid, lost millions in Madoff's scheme, according to the Wall Street Journal. Fortunately, he's worth many millions ($800M according to Forbes), so it probably didn't hurt him that bad. There's a little less peace in Nobel Peace prize winner Elie Wiesel's life because of Bernard Madoff. The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity issued a press release stating that nearly all of the foundation's assets (roughly $15.2M) were wiped out by Bernard Madoff's investment firm. The charitable foundation for New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg reported about $240K in income from an investment managed by Madoff in 2006, according to USA Today. And you know what that means: potential losses in the millions. Interestingly, Madoff donated $2,600 to Lautenberg's re-election campaign. We bet Lautenberg wishes he'd asked for more. Not everything is picture perfect in director Steven Spielberg's life these days. Madoff's securities firm handled significant assets from Spielberg's Wunderkinder Foundation, according to the Wall Street Journal.
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#10. To: All, Swindled Stars, Madoff's High-Profile Victims SUCKERS (#9)
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