Bed Bath & Beyond CFO Wasn’t Alone in NYC Apartment When He Jumped to His Death: Report

New reports say that the wife of former Bed Bath & Beyond chief financial officer Gustavo Arnal was with him in the final moments before he jumped to his death from the family’s 18th-floor Manhattan apartment.

Arnal, a native of Venezuela, and his wife rented a stunning three-bedroom in the skyscraper — nicknamed the “Jenga building” because of its unique design — for nearly $18,500 a month, said a source familiar with the property.

Arnal, 52, died in what police have said appears to have been a suicide, according to The New York Times. His body was found Friday in front of the Jenga building where he lived, and “appeared to suffer from injuries indicative from a fall from an elevated position,” police said in a statement.

At the time of the plunge, his wife was in the apartment, according to the New York Post.

A law enforcement source said no suicide note was found, and that no criminal conduct is suspected, the Post reported.

Arnal had been married to his wife for 28 years, according to the Daily Mail. He leaves behind two daughters.

He also leaves behind a tangled financial mess that prompted a class action lawsuit on behalf of everyone who bought Bed Bath & Beyond stock between March 25 and Aug. 18, according to the Daily Mail.

The suit was filed about one week before Arnal’s death.

The suit was aimed at the activities of Arnal and billionaire investor Ryan Cohen alleging that actions were taken to artificially inflate the stock price.

Ryan Cohen was accused of masterminding the operation to artificially inflate the price of the company’s stock before cashing out.

A lawsuit claims he approached Gustavo Arnal, 52, to release ‘materially misleading statements and omissions’ about the company’s financial standing.

This was before they allegedly cashed out and caused the price to plummet, leaving other shareholders out of around $1.2billion.

But the alleged plot came to an end when Arnal jumped from the 18th floor of the famous ‘Jenga’ building in New York City on Friday.

In August 16, Cohen filed a document to the Securities and Exchange Commission saying he owned 9,450,100 shares, including 1,670,100 shares under certain call options

MONEY MADE

Jake Freeman, 20, an applied mathematics and economics major at the University of Southern California, invested in nearly five million Bed Bath & Beyond shares at $5.50 a share in July, spending a total of $25 million with the help of a wealthy pharmaceutical investor uncle.

As a result, he became a minority shareholder by owning around six percent of America’s largest houseware goods specialty stores as it became the latest ailing retailer to see a surge in its value thanks to the ongoing ‘meme stock’ boom.

That sees amateur investors snap up stock in companies seen as past-their-best, helping to drive the share price up and making some lucky stockholders who sell at the right time millions of dollars.

Freeman, whose family resides in the New York City area, then roughly sold more than $130million worth of stock on August 16 similarly to Arnal, after the retailer’s stock price surged to $27 a share.

Freeman made a $110million profit by selling all of his Bed Bath & Beyond stock, nearly a month after investing in five million company shares at $5.50 a share

Traders on the Reddit forum WallStreetBets, who have cheered the stock in recent weeks, reacted to the CFO’s death with a mixture of stoicism and despair.

‘I just wanted make money without any effort. why I have to suffer like this? why?’ wrote one user on the forum.

The stock game is interesting.

What does it say about a man’s wife when he commits suicide?