SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - After 23 days on the run, convicted hedge fund swindler Samuel Israel III said he turned himself in because federal authorities had charged his girlfriend with helping him flee.
"Yes, they arrested my girlfriend, and I turned myself in," Israel said yesterday as he was led from federal court in Springfield, Mass., by deputy U.S. marshals to a waiting sport utility vehicle.
Israel walked into a police station in Southwick, Mass., yesterday and surrendered to authorities, more than three weeks after his sport utility vehicle was found abandoned on the Bear Mountain Bridge. The key was still in the ignition and the the words "suicide is painless" were scrawled in the dust on the hood. That was just two hours before he was due to report to a federal prison in Ayer, Mass., to begin serving a 20-year sentence for a $450 million fraud against investors in his Bayou Group hedge funds.
But authorities never bought the suicide scenario and asked a federal judge for an arrest warrant just a few hours later.
Two weeks ago, deputy U.S. marshals charged Israel's girlfriend, Debra Ryan, with helping him in his plans. Charges against her are pending in U.S. District Court in White Plains. She faces a 10-year prison term if convicted. Deputy marshals said she admitted that she helped pack Israel's belongings into a recreational vehicle, helped load a blue motor scooter onto the back of the RV, and drove Israel back to their Armonk home after he stashed the RV at a rest area off of Interstate 684 on the morning he was to report to prison.
Israel drove that motor scooter to the Southwick police station after attempting to surrender at a closed part-time police station in nearby Granville, Mass., officials said. He was talking to his mother on a cell phone when he surrendered, said Frank Dawson, the public information officer for the U.S. Marshals Service in Boston. He said the Marshals Service had been in contact with Israel's mother, Ann, in Illinois for the past several days.
I take umbrage with the fact that this guy had the nerve, upon his arraignment, to be wearing a cap emblazoned with the Avedis Zildjian logo. Who the hell does he think he is?
2 comments:
Actually it's his girlfriend I feel for, although, yeah, the hat was icky.
Like your last show a bunch by the way!
Chris
I have some "cymbalholic" friends who would also be really annoyed that he was wearin a zildjian hat. What a wanker.
Post a Comment