A rather odd coincidence.

Two top hedge-fund managers from the purported Wall Street mafia have left the scene, in different ways.

Goldman’s chief hedge-fund manager, Pierre-Henri Flamand (chief of GS Principal Strategies), retired in February after 15 years at Goldman. Flamand was with Principal Strategies from 2002 -2007, and then turned it into a hedge-fund in 2008, is starting his own fund. He’s being replaced by another manager from GSPS. Goldman has been accused of conniving with select hedge-funds to conduct bear raids on banks and governments.

Meanwhile, Adam Sackett, co-chief of trading at Third Point Capital, died on March 11, March 10, Wednesday night, apparently from a sudden bacterial infection. Third Point is one of the hedge-funds accused of colluding with David Einhorn’s Greenlight and SAC’s Steven Cohen in manipulative activities. Sackett had previously worked at Jim Chanos’ hedge-fund Kynikos (suspected by some to be part of that group), according to this death notice in the New York Times.

Note: Bankruptcy examiner Anton Valukas’ report on the demise of Lehman came out on March 11, 2010, the day after Sackett died.

Our condolences to the family.

In a letter to investors, posted at scribd, Daniel Loeb, Sackett’s co-chief at Third Point, called him “brilliant, kind, and funny, ” says the WSJ.

Last year, Third Point lost three senior officers, its chief operating officer, Brian Wilson, chief risk officer, Devin Dellaire, and head of investor relations, Tom Kratky.

And what’s been happening on the Madoff front? According to a long Wall Street Journal piece, he was allegedly beaten up in prison in December by another prisoner serving time for a drug conviction. He’s also been seen socializing with a Colombian crime family boss, Carmine Persico.

(From wiki:

“As of November 2007, Carmine “Junior” Persico still remains the reputed Boss of the Colombo crime family, with current street boss Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli, and former Persico rival, John “Sonny” Franzese as the Underboss, but due to parole violations, Andrew “Andy Mush” Russo is the acting Underboss instead of Franzese, with the Aloi brothers, Vincenzo and Benedetto, as alleged Consigliere.

Carmine Persico has reportedly been running the Colombo crime family since the 1970s, days after Joseph Colombo was shot, and Persico’s name has been mentioned in dozens of murder-cases since then, as he has been in charge of the Colombos for over three decades. During his 50-year-membership with the Colombo crime family, he has survived three internal wars, his life sentence, and allegedly been shot more than 20 times. Persico is also only one of three defendants from the Mafia Commission Trial who received 100 years and is still alive.

Still, Persico remains the Boss of the Colombo crime family. As of March 2009, Persico is serving a life imprisonment at the Butner Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Medium in North Carolina. His projected release-date is March 20, 2050, effectively a life sentence.^[1] It has been reported that Persico socializes with fellow inmate Bernard Madoff.^[4])”

Meanwhile, court appointed trustee Irving Picard is suing Madoff’s sons for $198 million, for dereliction of duty as his employees.

The two sons, as well as Madoff’s brother, are being charged with tax fraud.

Altogether five others have been charged in connection with this scheme, two having pleaded guilty and the rest maintaining their innocence.(Lila: I’m not clear from the WSJ piece if the two sons are part of the five or in addition.)

On March 17 (Wednesday) a federal grand jury also indicted Jerome O’Hara and George Perez, two programmers who allegedly developed the software that helped Madoff with his scheme. (More at Daily Finance).