Mark Madoff Found Dead

Manhattan, NYMark Madoff, the eldest son of Bernard Madoff, apparently committed suicide in his apartment on Saturday, on the second anniversary of his father's arrest for his Ponzi scheme. Since his father's arrest, Mr. Madoff and other family members had been targeted in a number of civil lawsuits.

According to The New York Times, a suit was later filed by the bankruptcy court trustee in an attempt to recover approximately $200 million that the family received in salaries, bonuses, expense-account payments and gains in their own investment accounts at the Madoff firm. As well, there was some speculation that the Madoff family could feasibly be prosecuted for tax-law violations, as they were part of the Madoff brokerage firm that involved a variety of low-cost loans and generous expense-account payments.

Mr. Madoff, aged 46, had been a licensed broker at the Madoff brokerage firm since June 1987. Many of Mark's childhood friends had invested with the firm and consequently lost their life savings in the Ponzi fraud, which caused Mark great pain, according to a person close to the family. Mark and his brother, Andrew, initiated their father's arrest after they reported Bernie's plans to distribute hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to employees months ahead of schedule.

Bernard Madoff estimated that his crime cost investors about $50 billion. Many articles and blogs insinuated that the Madoff family were also involved in the crime and would soon be arrested, although other sources have denied any involvement and that Mark was "an innocent victim of his father's monstrous crime who succumbed to two years of unrelenting pressure from false accusations and innuendo."

Mark Madoff is survived by his mother and father, his wife Stephanie, four children, and his brother Andrew.