Aug 6, 2008 2:29 pm US/Eastern
Judge Won't Let NY Stock-Swindler Plead Guilty
NEW YORK (AP) ―
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Missing hedge fund swindler Samuel Israel III surrendered to federal agents in Southwick, Mass. (File)
AP
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Debra Ryan, of Armonk, admitted to investigators that she helped Samuel Israel pack up the RV and saw him park it on a highway rest area on June 9, the day he was supposed to report to federal prison for the start of a 20-year term.
CBS
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This is a picture of the RV federal agents believe missing hedge fund swindler Samuel Israel III went on the run in.
CBS
Just as he was about to admit in court Wednesday that he had faked his suicide to avoid going to prison, hedge-fund swindler Samuel Israel III told the judge that treatment for his addiction to painkillers had affected his ability to think clearly.
The result was a six-week postponement, despite Israel's objections.
If his plea is ever accepted, Israel, 49, could have as much as 10 years added to his 20-year sentence for bilking investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Israel's drug therapy came up when Judge Kenneth Karas asked several questions meant to make sure that a defendant entering a guilty plea knows what he is doing. When Karas asked about medications, Israel said he was being weaned off the painkiller fentanyl—which had been prescribed after several back surgeries—with methadone.
When the judge asked him to rank his clear-mindedness on a scale of 1 to 100, Israel, wearing an untucked brown T-shirt and a salt-and-pepper beard, said, "About 70 percent." He professed his desire to go ahead with the plea, saying, "I certainly can understand what's going on here."
"I would not say I'm guilty of something because I'm drugged up if I'm not guilty," Israel insisted. But he also said he was "a little shaky."
Karas said, "Seventy percent is not a number that makes me feel comfortable," and Israel's lawyer, Barry Bohrer, acknowledged that he would not want to try a case in front of jurors who were 70 percent clear-minded. The parties agreed to return to court Sept. 16, when the withdrawal from fentanyl should be complete.
Earlier Wednesday, Israel tried to plead guilty in front of a federal magistrate, but she also refused him.
Israel disappeared on June 9, the day he was supposed to report to a federal prison hospital in Ayer, Mass. He left his SUV on a bridge north of New York City with the words "Suicide is Painless" etched into the dust on the hood.
He then took off in an RV and apparently spent the next few weeks at a Massachusetts campground while police and federal agents, not fooled by the fake suicide, searched for him. While he was missing, his girlfriend, Debra Ryan, was arrested and charged with aiding and abetting his failure to surrender. Her case is pending.
On July 2, Israel drove up to a police station in Southwick, Mass., on a motor scooter and surrendered. He was returned to Manhattan, and the next day a furious judge ordered him to forfeit his $500,000 bail.
Israel told that judge he had tried to commit suicide for real after becoming a fugitive but it didn't work "and I realized God didn't want me to do that and I turned myself in."
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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