NY Hedge Fund Manager Charged With Insider Trading Found Dead in Apparent Suicide, Police Say

— -- A hedge fund manager recently charged with insider trading was found dead this morning from an apparent suicide, according to a New York City police official.

Sanjay Valvani was discovered dead at his residence in Brooklyn this morning, the city police official told ABC News. Valvani was 44.

Police found a note and a knife at the apartment, according to the official.

While the city's medical examiner’s office has yet to determine Valvani's official cause of death, the official said it appeared that Valvani had slashed his throat.

Valvani was charged last week after federal prosecutors in Manhattan accused him of persuading a former senior Food and Drug Administration official to give him confidential information about generic drug approvals, according to a statement last week from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

Prosecutors claimed Valvani illegally earned about $25 million from 2005 through 2011.

Valvani pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

Valvani's lawyers, Barry Berke and Eric Tirschwell, told ABC News in a statement today that their client's death was "a horrible tragedy that is difficult to comprehend."

"Sanjay Valvani was a loving father, husband, son and brother and committed friend, colleague and mentor," they said. "We hope for the sake of his family and his memory that it will not be forgotten that the charges against him were only unproven accusations and he had always maintained his innocence."

The prosecutors involved in the case against Valvani declined to comment to ABC News today.