Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Make a Passover gift and support Jewish journalism. DONATE NOW
Fast Forward

Bernie Madoff Fraud Victim Jumps To Death At Manhattan Hotel

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

This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.

This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.

With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.