Mark Madoff, son of convicted Ponzi scheme operator Bernie Madoff, was found dead in his apartment this morning, the two-year anniversary of Bernie Madoff’s confession to his sons that he had been running a fraud. The New York Post reports:
Officers were called to 158 Mercer Street to respond to a report that Mark Madoff was hanging in his apartment.
He was found at 7:30 a.m. by his father-in-law, said police sources.
With him in the apartment was his 2-year-old child, said sources.
The Post also reports that Mark had been trading emails with his wife Stephanie, who sent a family member to check on her husband. Mark and his brother Andrew have denied knowledge of their father’s fraud. The Wall Street Journal, in a large package marking the anniversary of the Madoff revelation, says that Mark had tried unsuccessfully to find work as a trader and then began to work on developing iPad applications. Stephanie changed her name to Morgan following the arrest of her father-in-law, and now lives in Florida. She said her family had received threats as a result of the scandal. Legal restrictions and personal choice had kept the Madoff brothers out of contact with their father and their mother, Ruth, The Journal reports.
Mark and Andrew were facing legal action from Irving Picard, the trustee in charge of recouping Madoff funds and face a separate suit from former Madoff employees. Mark had been lately using an email address containing neither his first nor last names, according to The Journal.
The brothers’ attorney, Martin Flumenbaum, has issued the following statement:
Mark Madoff took his own life today. This is a terrible and unnecessary tragedy. Mark was an innocent victim of his father’s monstrous crime who succumbed to two years of unrelenting pressure from false accusations and innuendo. We are all deeply saddened by this shocking turn of events.
mtaylor [at] observer.com | @mbrookstaylor
