by Murray Weiss
December 24, 2008 | 5:00am
A blueblooded French financial executive – despondent over losing $1.4 billion
of his and his clients’ money to arch swindler Bernard Madoff – killed himself
by slitting his arms in his Midtown office.
Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, 65, was found dead yesterday morning at Access
International Advisors, the Madison Avenue hedge-fund firm he co-founded.
Police said de la Villehuchet had one leg propped up on his desk, and had placed
his wrists so that they bled down into a garbage can below. Nearby were a
boxcutter and a bottle of sleeping pills, some of which the married aristocrat
is believed to have taken before slashing both wrists and the crook of his
elbow.
No note was found. But police strongly believe that he killed himself over the
Madoff debacle.
He “could not cope with the pressure following the outbreak of the scandal,” one
close friend said yesterday.
A former employee of Access International said de la Villehuchet “was a great
guy. I’m saddened.”
“He was one of the hardest workers I know. He was clearly snookered – like a
huge percentage of the population – by a crook,” said the ex-employee, who
requested anonymity.
Guy Gurney, a photographer who lives in Connecticut, called de la Villehuchet
his friend and “a very honorable man.
“He was extraordinary generous. He was an aristocrat but not a snob. He was a
real person.
“When he was sailing, he was one of the boys.”
Gurney said that when he called de la Villehuchet to cancel a planned dinner
last week, his friend revealed he was a victim of Madoff.
“He sounded very subdued,” Gurney said. Referring to de la Villehuchet’s wife,
Claudine, Gurney said, “I can’t imagine what it’s like for her now.”
The ex-employee of Access International said de la Villehuchet owned a castle in
the French province of Brittany that dated to the 16th century, had an ancestor
named Magon whose name is inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and was a
world-class yachtsman.
“He hated the French – he insisted he was a Breton,” Gurney recalled. “He always
said he hated the French because they had cut off the heads of 20 of his
ancestors” during the French Revolution. Other sailing buddies remembered De la
Villehuchet buying dinner for five to ten friends at a time, and said he was
competing down in Florida as recently as last week.
De la Villehuchet’s long financial résumé includes founding and heading the
American arm of
Credit Lyonnais Securities .
“He was this blueblood French aristocrat [who] went to all the right schools and
had all the right connections,” said the ex-employee.
De la Villehuchet and others at Access International Advisors learned two weeks
ago that Madoff – whose offices are only three blocks away – had admitted to
federal authorities he was running a Ponzi scheme, and that $50 billion of his
investors’ money likely was gone. Madoff was arrested and then freed on bond.
The news rocked de la Villehuchet, who not only had placed client funds with
Madoff’s firm over the years, but also himself had a substantial chunk of money
invested with Madoff, sources said. Access International is feared to have lost
$1.4 billion – at least two-thirds of its total assets – placing it sixth on the
list of Madoff’s top 10 victims.
In recent weeks he had scrambled unsuccessfully to recover at least some money
for clients, who are overwhelmingly European, and who had entrusted their funds
with him because of his noble lineage and sterling reputation.
Others known to have solicited funds from clients for Access International
Advisors include Philippe Junot – the first husband of Princess Caroline of
Monaco – and Prince Michel of the former Yugoslavia.
Access International’s client list is rumored to include the Rothschild family
and the Bettencourt family, which own the cosmetics company L’Oreal.
On Monday night, sources said, de la Villehuchet worked late at Access
International and asked a janitor to finish cleaning his office by 7 p.m..
Later that night, a concerned partner at Access International who was not at the
office called a security guard and asked him to check de la Villehuchet’s
office. The guard found the office locked, sources said. At 7 a.m. yesterday,
sources said, someone else tried to enter de la Villehuchet’s office on the
22nd-floor and notified security. When the door finally was opened, he was found
dead at his desk.
A man who answered the door at de la Villehuchet’s home in New Rochelle asked
reporters to respect the family’s privacy.
“I think it’s terrible he did that to his wife, killing himself over money,”
said their neighbor, Ronald Zezima.
Zezima, 55, said the de la Villehuchets – who have no children – were very
polite, and spent part of the year living in Brittany.
Patricia Schulz-Heik, whose late husband, Joachim, was a longtime friend and
sailing partner of de la Villehuchet at the Larchmont Yacht Club, was
devastated.
“This is really sad news,” Schulz-Heik said.
Although de la Villehuchet likely did not know Madoff was a crook, he and his
firm could have been susceptible to lawsuits by clients.
Access International and other so-called feeders funds – including Fairfield
Greenwich, which had $7.5 billion placed with Madoff – had the responsibility of
doing “due diligence,” or making sure that their money was adequately
safeguarded and being used for its stated purpose.
De la Villehuchet is believed to be the second Madoff investor to kill himself.
On Dec. 17, 49-year-old HSBC banker Christen Schnor – whose firm may have lost
$1 billion in the scam – hanged himself in a London hotel.
Meanwhile, the Boston Globe yesterday reported that Robert Jaffe, who had been
vice president of a brokerage partly owned by Madoff, in the 1970s and 1980s
handled investments of four brothers tied to the Mafia in Boston. Those
brothers, the Angiulos, were convicted in 1986 in a large racketeering case.
A spokesman for Jaffe, who is known to have raised huge sums of money for Madoff
in Florida, did not deny that Jaffe had been a broker for the mobsters, but
called the Globe story “ancient history [that] has no bearing on the current
Madoff tragedy.”
Additional reporting by Larry Celona, John Doyle, C.J. Sullivan and Post wire
services
http://nypost.com/2008/12/24/now-bloods-on-bernies-hands/