In a statement, Barry H. Berke, a lawyer for Mr. Valvani, called his death “a horrible tragedy that is difficult to comprehend.”

“We hope for the sake of his family and his memory that it will not be forgotten that the charges against him were only unproven accusations and he had always maintained his innocence,” Mr. Berke said.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Valvani left behind two daughters.

The death of Mr. Valvani is still being investigated, but another police official said that it appeared to be a suicide.

It is not known whether other factors could have affected Mr. Valvani’s state of mind.

Suicides by people touched by white-collar criminal cases are rare. But there have been a few prominent examples in recent years. Mark Madoff, the older son of Bernard L. Madoff, hanged himself in his Manhattan apartment on the second anniversary of his father’s arrest on charges of running a Ponzi scheme. And J. Clifford Baxter, a former Enron executive, shot himself in the head in 2002 after he was subpoenaed by Congress to testify about the accounting scandal at the company.

“When you’re dealing with my world, there is everything to lose,” said Ira Lee Sorkin, a former lawyer for Mr. Madoff and a partner at Mintz & Gold, adding, “There’s reputation, family, business — you name it and some people just can’t take the pressure.”