ESM’s former comptroller committed suicide.

Henry Earl Riddel, who had pleaded guilty last month to mail fraud and conspiracy and was sentenced to three years in prison for his part in hiding ESM Government Securities’ losses, has become the second figure in the scandal to take his own life. Riddel, 68, who was in poor health, was to begin serving his federal prison term on Dec. 4. ESM, which owed about $315 million to dozens of creditors, collapsed in March, 1985. In July of that year, Miami lawyer Steve Arky, who represented ESM in some matters and who claimed he was innocent of wrongdoing in the ESM case, fatally shot himself.