Her husband killed himself after losing millions to Bernie Madoff — but now his wife is blaming the shrink.
The widow of hedge fund executive Charles Murphy, 56, whose fund at Fairfield Greenwich lost $50 million in the epic Ponzi scheme revealed in December 2008, filed suit in Manhattan Supreme Court on Wednesday against NYU Langone Professor Aaron Metrikin.
In court papers, Annabella Murphy accuses the psychiatrist of failing to prevent her husband’s suicidal tendencies.
Murphy jumped from the 24th floor of the luxury Sofitel New York Hotel in March 2017.
Metrikin treated the fallen financier for nine months before his suicide leap.
The suit says Murphy had previously threatened to kill himself by jumping from that very hotel.
“Despite knowing that the decedent had attempted suicide in the past and had advised him of suicidal tendencies, [Metrikin] failed to provide proper medication or to hospitalize decedent,” the suit says.
The suit also faults the doc for failing to refer his reeling patient to specialists. The shrink could have prevented Murphy’s death, the filing says.
According to previous reports, he had apparently been planning his demise for weeks and added his wife to the deed of their 11,500-square-foot townhouse on East 67th Street shortly before his suicide.
Earlier this year, she sold it for $20 million less than the initial asking price of $49.5 million.
And the family apparently was having financial troubles before Murphy’s leap. A parking attendant at a nearby garage said his wife had crashed their Honda Odyssey but could not afford to fix it.
At the time of his death, Murphy was working for Paulson & Co., a leading hedge fund run by billionaire John Paulson.
Paulson remembered his business partner as a “brilliant man, a great partner and a true friend” in a statement released following the suicide.
Murphy left behind five kids.
His wife is suing for unspecified damages including funeral, burial costs and her husband’s “conscious pain and suffering” leading up to his death.
“It’s a sad, unfortunate case,” her lawyer, David Jaroslawicz, told The Post.
“He certainly shouldn’t have been in a non-institutionalized environment,” Jaroslawicz said, adding that he consulted an expert who said the widow had a valid claim.
Metrikin did not return multiple messages seeking comment.
Murphy’s was the third death connected to the Madoff scandal. The schemer’s elder son, Mark, hanged himself in December 2010 on the second anniversary of his dad’s arrest. Two other investors — William Foxton and René-Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet — ended their lives after losing vast sums to the scheme.
A federal judge sentenced Madoff to 150 years in prison in 2009.