COLUMNISTS Suicide often reveals its gruesome presence in the aftermath of financial scandal. The horrifying death last week in New York of French money manager Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet seems connected to the alleged Madoff fraud. Apparently he slashed both wrists with a box-cutter after taking sleeping pills, having ensured there was a waste bin to collect the blood. His fund, Access International Advisors, appears to have lost $1.5bn (€1bn, £1bn), and he clearly felt unable to deal with Mr Madoff’s massive alleged deception.
Every suicide is a tragedy, but some evoke rather less of our sympathy than others. On a certain level I can almost understand why fraudsters kill themselves, when they face up to certain disgrace and imprisonment in the wake of their crimes. The classic example is Robert Maxwell, who some suspect threw himself overboard from his yacht Lady Ghislaine in November 1991 – just as his business empire crumbled. His monstrous theft of Daily Mirror pensioners’ assets was on the verge of being exposed, and this time he saw no way out.
