A well-connected hedge funder with ties to Bernie Madoff plunged to his death at a posh New York hotel, according to reports.



Charles Murphy, who most recently worked with hedge fund heavyweight John Paulson at Paulson & Co., was pronounced dead shortly after 5 p.m. Monday at the Sofitel building in what authorities are calling an apparent suicide. The New York Post reported that Murphy, 56, jumped from a room on the 24th floor and landed on a fourth-floor terrace.

"We are extremely saddened by this news. Charles was an extremely gifted and brilliant man, a great partner and a true friend," Paulson said in a statement. "Our deepest prayers are with his family."

There was no apparent motive for the suicide, though Murphy's financial travails have been well-documented.

Murphy's Fairfield Greenwich fund had invested more than $7 billion with Madoff before it became known in 2008 that Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme. Fairfield eventually agreed to pay $125 million to settle a lawsuit related to the Madoff case, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Madoff himself is serving a 150-year prison sentence; his son Mark hanged himself in 2010. Murphy is believed to be the fourth person connected to the Madoff case to commit suicide.