Samuel Israel III, the fugitive hedge fund manager, has come in from the cold.
A little more than three weeks after he went missing when he was supposed to be on his way to start serving a 20-year prison term, Israel turned himself over to police in Southwick, Mass., at 9:15 this morning, according to press reports.
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The New York Times reported that Israel was talking to his mother, Ann Israel, on the phone when he walked into the police station.
Federal marshals had been “in close contact” with Ann Israel, a spokeswoman told the Times.
Israel’s empty SUV was found on the Bear Mountain Bridge over the Hudson River on June 9.
The message “Suicide is Painless,” the title of the theme song for the television and movie versions of M*A*S*H, was written in dust on the hood.
Authorities searched the river below, but they also started a search for Israel on land, assuming he may have faked a suicide.
On June 19, federal authorities announced that they had arrested Israel’s girlfriend, Debra L. Ryan, 45.
They did this after she provided new details about Israel’s disappearance and admitted for the first time to her part in his attempt to fake his suicide and avoid prison.
According to Ryan, on the morning of June 9 Israel drove an RV packed with his belongings about 20 miles north of their home in Armonk, N.Y., to a rest area off Interstate 684 near the intersection of Interstate 84.
Ryan followed Israel in another vehicle and took him back to their home, leaving the RV in the rest stop, according to the complaint.
Later in the day, Israel’s SUV was founded parked on the bridge, which is about 20 miles west of the rest stop off Interstate 684 where the RV was left.
Ryan told investigators then that Israel had left their house in the morning, saying he was going to drive himself to the federal prison in Ayer, Mass., where he was supposed to report by 2 p.m.
Ryan was charged with aiding and abetting Israel in his flight. Free on $75,000 bail, she faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
Israel, 48, pleaded guilty in September 2005, for his part in a $400 million fraud involving his company, Bayou Management LLC and some of its hedge funds.
Two other officers in the company, Daniel Marino and James G. Marquez, also pleaded guilty and are serving prison terms.
The son of a prominent New Orleans family, Israel had started Bayou in the mid 1990s.
Though the company performed badly almost from the start, it reported substantial profits that were verified by phony accounting reports.
Israel lived well on the fees generated by the fake reports, even renting Donald Trump’s mansion in Mount Kisco, N.Y., for $32,000 a month.
The funds collapsed in August 2005 when Bayou could not fulfill an investor’s request to withdraw $55 million.
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