Feb 13, 2009 11:23 am US/Eastern
UK Veteran Killed Himself After Madoff Loss
LONDON (CBS) ―
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Bernard L Madoff walks down Lexington Ave to his apartment on Dec.17, 2008, in New York City.
Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images
A retired British army major killed himself after losing his life savings in the alleged fraud perpetrated by U.S. financier Bernard Madoff, his son said Friday.
Willard Foxton told The Associated Press he felt so angry after his father William Foxton's death he wanted to attend Madoff's possible trial in the United States to fling the veteran's medals in his face.
"I'm sure Mr. Madoff thinks it was just a con got out of hand. He thinks it's all about money -- I'm sure that's what he feels," Foxton said in a telephone interview. "I want him to see that people have died as a result of what he's done."
Police in the English town of Southampton say William Foxton died from a single gunshot to head on Tuesday and that a pistol was recovered at the scene. An inquest still needs to determine the cause of death, but police in the town, 80 miles southwest of London, say the shooting was not suspicious. Willard Foxton said it was suicide.
Foxton, speaking from London, said his 65-year-old father told him that he had lost all his money in a Madoff-linked fund about a week before the shooting.
"He was a bit distracted," Willard Foxton said. "He said: 'I can't really concentrate, I've lost everything in these bloody Bernie Madoff hedge funds."'
William Foxton was a decorated soldier who lost an arm in combat before retiring from the military in 1970s. He spent the 1990s and early 2000s in the Balkans, where he was a member of the European Commission Monitoring Mission and spent time as a spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He also did work for the German charity Arbeiter Samariter Bund, his son said.
Foxton, who rose to the rank of major in the British army, was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1999 for his work in the former Yugoslavia. His son said he had been investing his life savings in the Herald USA Fund and Herald Luxemburg Fund, both of which suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in losses as a result of Madoff's alleged scam.
Foxton's isn't the first suicide linked to the scheme. In December, 65-year-old French financier Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet slit his wrists after losing $1.4 billion he had invested with Madoff.
He was among the thousands of clients allegedly swindled out of billions of dollars by Madoff in a mammoth pyramid scheme -- a word used to describe a scam in which early investors are paid with money raised from new investors.
Madoff was arrested in December as the scheme unraveled and he remains confined to his Manhattan penthouse under house arrest.
A list of his apparent clients who fell victim to his scheme was recently released in a court filing. Among the more prominent names was Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax; Fred Wilpon, owner of the New York Mets; and New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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