Unintentionally, Made Crook?

French aristocrat Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, 65, a founding partner and chief executive officer of Access International Advisors, was found dead early this morning in his Manhattan office in New York. The cause? Suicide. (No need to get descriptive.) He didn't leave a note, something that many survivors know, will haunt Claudine, the wife he left behind. They had no children, but that doesn't mean that his friends or family will not bear the scars.

De la Villehuchet had invested $1.4 billion into Bernard Madoff's pyramid scheme. He made a temporary problem into a permanent solution, and fulfilled a statistic while he was at it. One in four elderly, those 65 and over, dies to suicide.

Not to beleaguer the point, but this is what happens when "the best and the brightest" are pushed aside for unprepared, ideology-focused friendships with benefits, and placed in positions of power. The Security Exchange Commission, which regulates markets and protects investors funds, ha!, was repeatedly asked by credible sources to investigate Madoff for fraud and nothing was repeatedly found.

According to the Washington Post, "Madoff was a Wall Street legend, an acquaintance of senior regulators and a major political contributor, mostly to Democrats. The SEC is investigating whether relationships between Madoff's family and regulators played a role."

Yet again, the level of incompetence that reverberated throughout the current Administration just leaves me stunned and saddened me beyond belief.

Madoff was someone that could have been contained. De la Villehuchet saw the concentrated returns and tried to disinvest for five years. His due diligence demanded it for his business and his clients. Unfortunately, the will of a charming salesman prevailed. It cost De la Villehuchet his life.

Here again is another life lost under our watch.

The Afterw@rd