Bernie Madoff Fraud Victim Jumps To Death At Manhattan Hotel

Image by Getty Images

By Daniel J. Solomon March 28, 2017

Almost a decade after losing billions of his clients’ money in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, hedge fund financier Charles Murphy leaped to his death Monday from the twentieth floor of Midtown Manhattan’s luxury Sofitel Hotel, in what is being described as a suicide.

“We are extremely saddened by this news. Charles was an extremely gifted and brilliant man, a great partner and a true friend,” founder John Paulson, who worked with Murphy at the Paulson and Co. investment firm, wrote in a statement. “Our deepest prayers are with his family.”

The implosion of the Madoff scheme was devastating for Murphy, whose then-employer Fairfield Greenwich Group bled $7 billion and closed, with principals including Murphy facing a lawsuit from enraged investors.

Soon after the Madoff catastrophe, Murphy listed his Upper East Side townhouse for sale, and it still remains on the market – available for purchase at almost $50 million. According to the New York Daily News, Murphy was a graduate of Columbia, Harvard, and MIT, and will be survived by four children – two by his second wife and two by his first.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO