GREENWICH DECORATOR ARRESTED ..... AGAIN !!!!!!U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas: "Ms. Ryan, please don't tempt fate"
Norwalk Advocate
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- The girlfriend of Stamford hedge fund swindler Samuel Israel III, already accused of helping him try to avoid a prison sentence, attempted to send him $300 in jail, officials said Wednesday.
The cash was "secreted in the pages of a magazine" that had been mailed to Israel last month at the Westchester County jail, county police spokesman Kieran O'Leary said. He did not know the name of the magazine.
The money was discovered during routine screening and did not reach Israel, O'Leary added. Prisoners are not permitted to receive cash.
The magazine was traced to the girlfriend, 45-year-old Debra Ryan of Armonk, N.Y., and she was arrested on Friday, O'Leary said. She is due in local court later this month.
Ryan is a decorator who rented a house on Highland Avenue in Greenwich. Israel founded the hedge fund Bayou Group in Stamford in 1996.
The arrest was first disclosed in federal court after Ryan pleaded not guilty to the charge she helped Israel go on the lam rather than begin his 20-year prison sentence last June.
Israel surrendered a month later and was recently transferred to a federal medical prison in Massachusetts for physical and psychological tests ordered by U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas. The judge is unsure that Israel, who has been addicted to painkillers, is competent to plead guilty to the charge of failing to report to prison.
Ryan's lawyer, Richard Strassberg, declined comment on the contraband charge, which is a misdemeanor with a maximum one-year sentence upon conviction. She could face as much as 10 years in prison if convicted on the original charge.
The judge warned Ryan to have "no contact of any kind" with Israel in the future and added that to the conditions of her $75,000 bail.
"Ms. Ryan, please don't tempt fate," he added
Though Ryan pleaded not guilty to the charge of aiding and abetting Israel's failure to report to prison, negotiations on a plea bargain are under way. Prosecutor Nicholas McQuade told the judge lawyers were in talks "likely to result in a disposition of the case."
The judge set Feb. 10 for the next court session.
Ryan's original arrest came in June, 10 days after Israel faked his suicide on the Bear Mountain Bridge and fled the day he was supposed to begin the sentence he received for swindling investors in his Bayou hedge funds. Prosecutors said at the time that Ryan admitted helping Israel pack up the RV that he used to flee.
Ryan's statement was the first big break announced in the case after Israel's SUV was found abandoned on a Hudson River bridge with the ominous words "Suicide is Painless" etched in dust on the hood.
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