Fund Chief With Madoff Ties Commits Suicide
By: CNBC with AP | 23 Dec 2008 | 05:44 PM ET
The founder of an investment fund that lost $1.4 billion with Bernard Madoff
was discovered dead Tuesday after committing suicide at his Madison Avenue
office, marking a grim turn in a scandal that has left investors around the
world in financial ruin.
Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet was found sitting at his desk at about 8
a.m. with both wrists slashed, New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne
said. A box cutter was found on the floor along with a bottle of sleeping pills.
De la Villehuchet, 65, was pronounced dead at 8 a.m. local time at a Madison
Avenue building in midtown Manhattan, New York City Medical Examiner
spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said. He was co-founder of money manager Access
International.
Results of an autopsy are not expected to be available until late Wednesday
morning. No suicide note was found.
De la Villehuchet, who was described by his attorney as having been distraught
recently, had been trying to recover some of the funds lost to Madoff, whom
U.S. prosecutors accuse of orchestrating a $50 billion fraud.
De la Villehuchet was one of several fund managers to be hit hard in Madoff's
alleged Ponzi scheme. Investment funds that lost big to Madoff are also facing
backlash and investor lawsuits for not protecting their clients from the
alleged fraud.
It is not immediately known what kind of scrutiny de la Villehuchet was facing
over his Madoff losses through Access International, located a couple of blocks
from Rockefeller Center.
But on Monday night, he told cleaning crews in his building that he wanted them
out of his office by 7 p.m. because he was going to be working late. Workers
returned Tuesday morning and found the door locked. He was discovered dead with
a garbage can placed near his body, apparently to catch the blood, NYPD's
Browne said.
De la Villehuchet was a prominent investor who came from a long line of
aristocratic Frenchmen, with the Magon part of his name referring to one of
France's most powerful families.
His fund enlisted intermediaries with links to the cream of Europe's high
society to garner clients. Among them was Philippe Junot, a French businessman
and friend who is the former husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco. Among de
la Villehuchet's investors was France's second richest family, the
Bettencourts.
De la Villehuchet, the former chairman and chief executive of Credit Lyonnais
Securities USA, was also known as a keen sailor who regularly participated in
regattas and was a member of the New York Yacht Club.
He lived in an affluent suburb in Westchester County with his wife. They have
no children. There was no answer Tuesday at the family's two-story house, which
has a majestic view of a pond.
"He's irreproachable," said Bill Rapavy, who was Access International's chief
operating officer before founding his own firm in 2007.
Access may have lost as much as $1.4 billion to the Madoff scheme. The fund did
not immediately return a call seeking comment.
According to a source familiar with the situation, de la Villehuchet was asked
by Madoff to set up Access to market the Madoff funds to the Bettencourts—who
owe their fortune largely to the L'Oreal cosmetics company—and to their society
friends
