A French financial executive whose firm lost a bundle in Bernard Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme killed himself this morning in his Midtown Manhattan office, cops said.
The exec, 65-year-old Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, was found dead at around 8 a.m. with razor cuts to his arms, and with sleeping pills nearby in an office building at 509 Madison Ave., law enforcement sources said.
That address is home to Acccess International Advisors, which de la Villehuchet co-founded.
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Sources said de la Villehuchet had worked late last night, which was unusual for him.
After other employees left for the day, de la Villehuchet is believed to have consumed an unknown quantity of sleeping pills and slit his writs while sitting at his desk.
His body was found at about 7 a.m. today by cleaning staff.
Sources said that de la Villehuchet’s lawyer told police that his client had been distraught.
Sources said that no note was found at the scene.
Access International reportedly had up to $1.4 billion of its well-heeled clients’ funds invested in Madoff’s money management operation.
Madoff’s operation collapsed Dec. 11, when he was arrested by federal authorities on charges that his investment fund was actually a huge fraud that had squandered up to $50 billion in investor funds.
Madoff, 70, allegedy used investors’ own money to create the illusion that the fund was generating double-digit returns every year. The scam is believed to have financially wrecked or seriously damaged thousands of people.
The Paris newspaper La Tribune’s Web site reported that de la Villehuchet had been desperately scrambling to try to recover some of the money lost to Madoff.
“For a week . . . he searched night and day for a way to save the day for these investors, going forward with a legal action in the US against the Americans responsible,” said a person close to him quoted by La Tribune. “This is the goodbye of someone who was irreproachable. He never stopped doing things for others.”
Earlier in his career, de la Villehuchet was the founder and CEO of the Credit Lyonnais Securities (USA), the American arm of a once-acclaimed French investment bank,
He also was a competitive sailor known for racing in Long Island Sound.