Paris: A French investment fund manager badly hit by the multi-billion-dollar Madoff scandal committed suicide in his New York office today, a French newspaper reported.

Thierry de la Villehuchet, 65,was the co-founder of Access International, a company that raised funds on the European markets to plough into Bernard Madoff's fraud-hit investment scheme.

Villehuchet "could not cope with the pressure following the outbreak of the scandal. He took his own life, this morning, in his office in New York," the website of la Tribune business daily quoted his relatives as saying.

"This is a farewell from someone who had done nothing wrong," they said.

"For the past week, he had tried day and night to find a way to recoup his investors money and had begun legal action in the United States against US authorities," his relatives said.

But "he could not stand the hunt for culprits launched by the Europeans."

"The truth is that everyone wanted to invest with Madoff, considered by everyone to be AAA, i.e. Absolute security."

Prosecutors allege that Madoff, 70,has confessed to losing upward of USD 50 billion over years of running a pyramid scheme, where new investors were secretly fleeced to pay returns to existing investors.

He is currently free on bail of USD 10 million as police continue a probe.

La Tribune did not specify how much Villehuchet's company had invested in the scheme.

Source : PTI