NEW YORK (Reuters) – Mark Madoff, the elder son of convicted swindler Bernard Madoff, was found hanged in his New York City apartment in an apparent suicide on the second anniversary of his father’s arrest, police and his lawyer said yesterday.
The 46-year-old Mark Madoff, who had worked at his father’s firm, “succumbed to two years of unrelenting pressure from false accusations and innuendo,” his lawyer said. He was found dead in his apartment in the city’s SoHo neighborhood, New York City police spokesman Paul Browne said.
Bernard Madoff, 72, is serving a 150-year prison sentence after confessing to running a decades-long Ponzi scheme that bilked investors out of billions, considered the biggest financial fraud in history.
“Mark Madoff took his own life today. This is a terrible and unnecessary tragedy,” Martin Flumenbaum, a lawyer for Mark Madoff and his younger brother, Andrew, said in a statement. He said “Mark was an innocent victim of his father’s monstrous crime.”
Mark Madoff’s 2-year-old son was in the apartment when the body was discovered by his father-in-law, said police at the scene who declined to be identified.
The Madoff sons and other family members had worked for Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC, which crumbled when the Ponzi scheme was revealed. Madoff was arrested on Dec. 11, 2008, a day after he said he confessed to his sons, who then turned him in to authorities.
Defrauded Madoff investors have long viewed the convicted swindler’s sons, wife and other family members suspiciously, arguing it is unfathomable that they did not know about Bernard Madoff’s lies. No family members have been criminally charged and they reject accusations that they were aware of the fraud.
Mark Madoff had been distraught over speculation of potential criminal charges against him, said a person familiar with his activities but who was not authorized to speak publicly about him. There had been no indication that any charges were imminent, the source said.
The Wall Street Journal reported in February that Bernard Madoff’s sons and brother were the subject of criminal tax-fraud probes by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.
Ira Lee Sorkin, a lawyer for Bernard Madoff, said Mark Madoff’s death was “a great tragedy at many levels.” He declined comment on whether he had spoken to Bernard Madoff, who is in a North Carolina prison, about his son’s death.
