Swindler came in out of cold, but got icy reception
The Journal News - Jul 06 11:33 PM
Swindler came in out of cold, but got icy reception
July 7, 2008
Noreen O'Donnell
Journal News columnist
OK, so Sam Israel never made it to Brazil.
The convicted hedge fund manager, whom I pictured relaxing on the Copacabana, didn't reach any far-flung place.
He was exactly where federal authorities thought he might be: hiding out at a campground. What a pedestrian end for the descendant of a wealthy New Orleans family.
Without his passport, which he relinquished to authorities after his conviction, Israel never had much chance for a spectacular getaway. He had to settle for the Prospect Mountain Campground in Granville, Mass., not far from the Connecticut border.
Not that it isn't beautiful there - a bucolic spot in the foothills of the Berkshires - but it isn't Rio.
Israel arrived at the family campground four weeks ago, driving a used camper with his shiny blue scooter aboard. It was the day he was to have begun serving 20 years in federal prison for bilking his investors.
He had left his sport utility vehicle on the Bear Mountain Bridge, the words "Suicide is painless" written in the dust on the hood, in a too obvious attempt to fake his death. Within hours, an international manhunt was under way.
But authorities soon knew about the Yamaha scooter and the Freelander recreational vehicle and were circulating a wanted poster with the suggestions that he might be secreted at an RV park or highway rest area. It was only a matter of time for a man who had once rented a house from Donald Trump.
In his last week of freedom, Israel paid $246 for site No. 75, just inside the campground off Prospect Drive. By then, his own prospects were dim.
For all of the $300 million he swindled, he was drinking Gatorade and eating doughnuts and meatball heros. And he was jogging and buying a pack of Marlboros every day, not activities you might expect from a man who has had nine back surgeries and such serious heart problems that he has a pacemaker.
That poor health was one reason he wasn't already in jail. His sentencing was delayed 2 1/2 years. When he appeared in April before U.S. District Court Judge Colleen McMahon, she accused him of using his ailments to stay out of prison.
"I am not interested in the defendant's medical problems," she wrote, though she allowed him to remain free on bail until he was to have started serving his prison term at the beginning of June.
Israel was on the phone with his mother, Ann, when he surrendered Wednesday to police in Southwick, Mass. By then, he apparently was determined to give himself up. He first tried a part-time Police Department closer to the campground, but when the station was closed, he had to ride 12 miles to Southwick on that blue scooter.
Had he delayed his surrender a few days - and he had paid for his site through tomorrow - he could have taken part in an all-American Fourth of July weekend at Prospect Mountain Campground. Volleyball, a scavenger hunt, bingo and fireworks were all on the agenda.
But Israel said he had tried to commit suicide after all on Tuesday by swallowing morphine tablets and the painkiller fentanyl.
"I thought it was better to do myself in than to turn myself in," he said, when he was back before McMahon on Thursday.
Then he woke up battered and bruised and realized his suicide was not what God wanted, he said.
If he was seeking pity, McMahon was not offering any.
When at one point he sat down, she told him, "If you can ride a motorcycle, Mr. Israel, you can stand up in my courtroom."
And she withdrew a recommendation that he be sent to a medical prison such as Fort Devens, northwest of Boston.
"It was thrown in my face the last time," she said.
Israel had already been ordered to make restitution for the $300 million that investors, including his mother, had lost.
When Israel pleaded guilty in September 2005, he admitted that the principals in the Bayou Funds lied about the return they were getting on investments and the value of the funds.
Bayou never had a profitable year, a fact the men hid from their wealthy investors by creating phony statements, according to authorities.
Now more people want money from Israel. McMahon revoked his $500,000 bail and said it should go toward the cost of the manhunt.
It seems sympathy for Israel has run out.
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