By Vincent Trivett
DNAinfo reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — His son's suicide hit Bernie Madoff like a "shot to the stomach," a recent inmate who saw the Ponzi schemer receive the news told the New York Post.
Madoff's ex-prison mate said that the disgraced billionaire was “distraught and crying" after officials told him Mark Madoff had hung himself.
He looked “like someone had shot him in the stomach," the source said.
The ex-con told the paper that Madoff was called to the prison chapel, where he was told about the suicide.
After returning to his cell sobbing, he says, Madoff shut himself up for two days, not even leaving to eat.
The ex-convict also said that Madoff was upset that his wife, Ruth, didn’t come to the prison to comfort him.
“He was upset that his wife hasn’t come down to see him because of [her] fears that the media is at the prison and that she’ll be harassed," he told the paper.
“He thinks the family is trying to avoid the media.”
Madoff biographer Jerry Oppenheimer told the Post that Ruth blames Bernie for their oldest son's suicide.
Bernard Madoff is currently serving a 150 year sentence in a North Carolina prison for defrauding an estimated $20 billion from investors in a Ponzi-scheme.
Mark Madoff hung himself with a dog leash in his Mercer Street loft last week. He was 46 years old.
