by Zachary Chin
January 4th, 2009
Police arrived on the scene early Tuesday Morning to find Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, a victim of Bernard Madoff’s $50 billion Ponzi scheme, dead in his apartment after losing over $1 billion to the Madoff Investment Securities LLC hoax.
Reports say De la Villehuchet used a box-cutter to make lacerations on his wrists after overdosing on sleeping pills. The scene introduces a horrific element of the backlash of Madoff’s corporate crime. De la Villehuchet’s ties to the French aristocracy, his membership in the New York Yacht Club, and his passion for high-priced investments made him a perfect target for Madoff.
Madoff allegedly coerced high rolling executives and aristocrats into using his hedge fund, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, to manage their money. He had them deposit their money into his personal account, reported fake figures that far exceeded realistic returns, and in his own words: “used the money in the Chase Manhattan bank account that belonged to them or other clients to pay the requested funds.”
Victims like De la Villehuchet were shocked to discover that the reported returns were not backed by real money, and that they had been misled in a pyramid style scheme. In 1999, there were already serious concerns about the returns that the hedge fund had been reporting. Since then, there had been multiple requests for the Security and Exchange Commission to investigate Madoff’s business, but the corporate scheme continued until Madoff privately confessed to his son that the entire fund was “one grand lie.”
Madoff allegedly coerced high rolling executives and aristocrats into using his hedge fund, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, to manage their money. He had them deposit their money into his personal account, reported fake figures that far exceeded realistic returns, and in his own words: “used the money in the Chase Manhattan bank account that belonged to them or other clients to pay the requested funds.”
 |
| Madoff in his New York City office circa 1999, around the time Henry Markopolos began trying to expose the corporate scheme. |
Henry Markopolos was the first to try to expose Madoff’s practices and was responsible for multiple attempts to alert the SEC. Yet, his whistle-blowing tactics went unrecognized despite numerous examples of how the figures reported by the investment fund were statistically inconsistent and “literally impossible”.
Madoff now sits in house arrest in his Upper East Side penthouse apartment while victims are left to recover their lost funds and cope with their broken spirits. Madoff is set to go on trial in March of this year and is being charged on numerous counts of fraud, obstruction, and perjury.
Madoff now sits in house arrest in his Upper East Side penthouse apartment while victims are left to recover their lost funds and cope with their broken spirits. Madoff is set to go on trial in March of this year and is being charged on numerous counts of fraud, obstruction, and perjury.
