A New York judge has blocked convicted
Ponzi scheme architect Sam Israel’s latest attempt to skip out on serving his
felony prison sentence.
In 2005, Israel earned two decades in lock-up for perpetrating a $450 million fraud under the guise of Connecticut-based Bayou Hedge Fund Group.
In May, having served less than five years, he filed to be released on time served.
Israel’s lawyers argued that the Federal Bureau of Prisons had failed to provide the inmate with adequate treatment for his “numerous medical conditions, including, but not limited to, sick sinus syndrome, degenerative spinal disease, opioid dependence, and depression.”
According to the filing, Israel ate his prison-issued pain treatment patch one evening—an adhesive drugged with an opiate 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. Following this incident, medical staff at the low-security institution curtailed the 54-year-old’s opiate and methadone dosages, and placed him in an isolated “special housing unit” (SHU).
“To make matters worse, the confined space of the SHU, the paltry excuse for bedding, and the extremely limited time for exercise and sunshine, all conspired to further undermine petitioner’s mental and physical well being,” Israel’s lawyers argued in the motion for his release.
“The pain was so bad that petitioner could not sleep. He would often pass out from exhaustion. All of his complaints and requests for a restoration for a pain management regime were rejected.”
Israel’s complaints and requests were once again rejected last week by Southern District of New York Judge Colleen McMahon. She upheld the original sentence, ruling that the motion had been filed too late to be valid, made an insufficient case, and asked for the court to take action outside of its jurisdiction.
In addition to the 20 years Israel received for swindling investors, an earlier attempt to shirk jail time earned him an extra two years.
He failed to surrender to authorities in the summer of 2008 after being sentenced for the three felony fraud charges, to which he pleaded guilty. Israel then attempted to fake his death by abandoning his SUV on a bridge outside of Manhattan with the message “Suicide is Painless” written on the hood. Instead of giving him a chance to disappear, the strategy landed Israel on America’s Most Wanted.
Weeks later, he turned himself in.
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