Nadel Again Seeks Release From Jail While Awaiting Fraud Trial

Date: Friday, September 25, 2009
Author: David Glovin, Bloomberg

Arthur Nadel, the Florida hedge- fund adviser who has been jailed since January, again asked a judge to release him on reduced bail while he awaits trial.

A lawyer for Nadel, a money manager and founder of Scoop Management Inc. in Sarasota, Florida, told U.S. District Judge John Koeltl in New York that the case isn’t close to going to trial and that Nadel should be presumed innocent. Nadel, 77, is now being held in a federal jail in New York.

“After eight months in jail, Mr. Nadel’s circumstances have been so dramatically reduced and his thoughts so focused on concern for his wife that he has no desire whatsoever to flee and incur any risk to her,” lawyer Mark Gombiner wrote in a letter yesterday, adding that his client has “lost everything.”

Nadel, who disappeared for two weeks in January after Florida authorities began investigating investor complaints about missing money, proposes that he be released on a $1 million bond, guaranteed by his wife’s Florida home. He said he would be subject to electronic monitoring. Nadel was charged in January in New York with securities and mail fraud. He surrendered six days later in Tampa, Florida.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Maria Douvas has opposed reductions in bail, saying Nadel may flee and may be holding money in foreign accounts.

Gombiner said a receiver seized all of Nadel’s assets and that he would be unable to run.

Nadel has pleaded not guilty in the case.

The case is U.S. v. Nadel, 1:09-cr-433, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

To contact the reporter on this story: David Glovin in U.S. District Court in New York at dglovin@bloomberg.net.