BOSTON, March 28 (Reuters) - A partner at New York hedge fund Paulson & Co died on Monday after jumping out of a hotel window in Midtown Manhattan, according to police.

The New York City Police Department said it received a call late on Monday afternoon that the man had jumped out of a 24th-floor window of the Sofitel New York Hotel.

An investigation, treating the incident as suicide, has begun, a police spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

The man was identified as Charles Murphy by his employer, billionaire investor John Paulson. "We are extremely saddened by this news," Paulson said in a statement. "Charles was an extremely gifted and brilliant man, a great partner and a true friend."

Murphy was instrumental in getting Paulson to invest in insurance companies including American International Group Inc , where the billionaire had pushed for the company to break apart and now has a seat on the board.

Before coming to Paulson, Murphy worked for hedge fund Fairfield Greenwich Group and several investment banks. He was 56 years old and lived in a townhouse on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Fairfield Greenwich Group collapsed after it was accused of putting clients' money with Bernard Madoff, who admitted in 2009 that he ran a Ponzi scheme. Prosecutors said the scheme amounted to as much as $65 billion over 20 years and involved more than 4,800 client accounts.

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Bill Rigby)