Partner at New York hedge fund jumped to his death: police

BOSTON (Reuters) - A partner at New York hedge fund Paulson & Co died on Monday after jumping out of a hotel window in Midtown Manhattan, according to police.

The New York City Police Department said it received a call late on Monday afternoon that the man had jumped out of a 24th-floor window of the Sofitel New York Hotel.

An investigation, treating the incident as suicide, has begun, a police spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

The man was identified as Charles Murphy by his employer, billionaire investor John Paulson. "We are extremely saddened by this news," Paulson said in a statement. "Charles was an extremely gifted and brilliant man, a great partner and a true friend."

Murphy was instrumental in getting Paulson to invest in insurance companies including American International Group Inc, where the billionaire had pushed for the company to break apart and now has a seat on the board.

Before coming to Paulson, Murphy worked for hedge fund Fairfield Greenwich Group and several investment banks. He was 56 years old and lived in a townhouse on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Fairfield Greenwich Group collapsed after it was accused of putting clients' money with Bernard Madoff, who admitted in 2009 that he ran a Ponzi scheme. Prosecutors said the scheme amounted to as much as $65 billion over 20 years and involved more than 4,800 client accounts.

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Bill Rigby)