Bernard Madoff will not attend son's funeral - Attorney

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Convicted Ponzi-schemer Bernard Madoff will not attend the funeral of his son, Mark, out of consideration for his daughter-in-law and grandchildren, attorney Ira Sorkin said.

Mark Madoff's body was discovered hanging from a ceiling pipe in his Manhattan apartment on Saturday, two years to the day after his father was arrested for swindling $50 billion from investors in the largest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history.

The death of the younger Madoff was ruled a suicide by the New York medical examiner's office after an autopsy on Sunday, spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said.

"He will be conducting a private service on his own where he's presently incarcerated," Sorkin said.

Madoff, 71, is at the Butner Federal Correction Complex, a medium-security prison in eastern North Carolina, where he is serving a 150-year prison sentence.

Madoff bilked investors out of their money by masquerading as the head of a legitimate investment firm while using funds from new investors to send payments to his earlier investors, falsely portraying them as proceeds when they were actually stolen money, prosecutors said.

Madoff's criminal activities spawned a tidal wave of civil actions against Mark Madoff, his mother, siblings and hundreds of other defendants, accused of profiting off the Ponzi scheme by withdrawing more money from Madoff's fund than they invested, money they presumably thought was investment income.

A person familiar with the family says Mark Madoff has not been in touch with his extended family for the past two years.

Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee in charge of recovering and distributing Madoff's assets, has filed a slew of lawsuits in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan over the past week on behalf of some of Madoff's victims.

One filed on December 8 named Mark Madoff -- as well as his brother Andrew Madoff and uncle Peter Madoff -- as one of several defendants in a civil lawsuit.