Man Jumps to Death From Hotel While Facing Charge of Defrauding Goldman Sachs CEO

NEW YORK — A former personal assistant to a top executive at Goldman Sachs jumped to his death from a Manhattan hotel on Tuesday, the same day he was scheduled to appear in federal court on a criminal charge related to a lucrative theft from his former boss, the authorities said.

The former assistant, Nicolas De-Meyer, was accused of stealing more than $1.2 million in high-end wine from the collection of his former boss, David Solomon, who is now the chief executive of Goldman Sachs.

De-Meyer was scheduled to appear in federal court at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, court records show. The police responded to a call about a person who jumped from a hotel at 2:38 p.m.

De-Meyer, 41, jumped from the 33rd floor of the Carlyle, a luxury hotel on the Upper East Side where he had been staying, the police said. The authorities said he was pronounced dead at the scene.

The police were investigating the case as a suicide.

De-Meyer was facing one count of interstate transportation of stolen property. Sabrina Shroff, a lawyer representing him in the federal case, did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday evening.

The New York Post reported that he was scheduled to plead guilty Tuesday, but leapt to his death while his lawyers waited for him in court.

By Tuesday night, the police appeared to have cleared the scene and the Carlyle was quiet. Many guests and bar patrons said they were unaware of anyone jumping. A spokeswoman for the Carlyle said she could not comment.

De-Meyer worked as a personal assistant to Solomon from 2008 to 2016, according to an indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The indictment does not name Solomon, but a Goldman Sachs spokesman previously confirmed he was the victim.

Solomon, who joined Goldman Sachs as a partner in 1999, was named the firm’s chief executive in July. He is known for having a wide variety of outside interests, including collecting rare wine.

When he was the personal assistant to Solomon, De-Meyer received shipments of wine at his boss’s Manhattan apartment and was then expected to deliver them to Solomon’s wine cellar in East Hampton, on Long Island.

But federal prosecutors say De-Meyer stole hundreds of bottles and, using the alias Mark Miller, sold the wine to a dealer from North Carolina.

Among the vast collection, the most prized vintages stolen were seven bottles of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, a French pinot noir from Burgundy produced by one of the most revered vineyards in the world. Reviewers have described the wines, which can fetch tens of thousands of dollars per bottle, as “liquid velvet.” Solomon had purchased the bottles for $133,650, the authorities said.

De-Meyer was arrested at the Los Angeles International Airport in January, but had been living in Ohio more recently. A judge ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to pay for him to travel from Findlay, Ohio, to New York before his hearing Tuesday, according to court records.

He was facing up to 10 years in prison.