UPDATED 8:14 p.m. EDT U.S.A. James Merrill, the onetime president of TelexFree arrested and detained May 9 on wire-fraud conspiracy charges, was not freed at a bail hearing today and will remain in custody.
“The judge took the matter under advisement,” the office of U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz of the District of Massachusetts said early this evening. “Merrill remains in custody until such time” the judge rules on his bail application.
Precisely when the judge intended to rule was not immediately clear. It is believed the ruling will come next week.
Merrill proposed to surrender his passport and to sign over the equity in his Ashland (Mass.) home to secure his appearance at further court proceedings. The Merrill property equity was estimated at $300,000, and Merrill contended he was not a flight risk.
His TelexFree business partner — Carlos Wanzeler — has been labeled a fugitive by the U.S. Department of Justice. An affidavit says Wanzeler ducked into Canada after dark on April 15, the day TelexFree’s offices were raided in Marlborough, Mass. Two days after that, Wanzeler boarded a plane in Toronto and flew to Brazil.
Through his attorney Beverly B. Chorbajian, Merrill said he would not flee.
“Here, the government recites that Merrill is a risk merely because he ‘might’ flee,” Chorbajian argued. “There is absolutely no evidence of any indication that this is the case.”
Merrill’s wife, Chorbajian advised the judge, described him a loving family man with an interest in the community. Merrill, his wife said, has been a youth-baseball coach, a fine son to his mother and a friend who comforted a childhood friend dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease.
“His [C]atholic faith is important to him and has sustained him these past few months through this ordeal,” Merrill’s wife said, according to a defense memo to the judge.
From the remarks of Merrill’s wife as presented the judge (italics added):
He only took more interest in TelexFree because he saw a future with this business in spite of all his frustrations with the way it was being run. He spent countless hours working to make it better – finding consultants to help, consulting attorneys, and so forth. He was so vested in seeing it on the right path. Conspiracy to commit fraud is so far from his intentions and actions.
Repeating a contention in the TelexFree bankruptcy case, Chorbajian argued that Merrill was not part of a plot to hide money. Bankruptcy attorneys argued that cashier’s checks were destined to be placed in a safe-deposit box when found in the possession of former TelexFree CFO Joe Craft.
Nearly $38 million in cashier’s checks were discovered during the April 15 raid of TelexFree’s headquarters. TelexFree had declared bankruptcy two days earlier.
Wanzeler, according to a government affidavit, spent all or parts of three days in Canada prior to flying to Brazil. What he did there remains a mystery.
Maps estimate that it’s a four and a half-hour drive from Northborough, Mass. (where Wanzeler resided) to the Lacolle border crossing through which Wanzeler allegedly entered Canada at roughly 11 p.m. on the date of the TelexFree raid. If the government’s timeline is accurate, it may mean Wanzeler was in Canada for at least an hour on April 15, all day on April 16 and part of the day on April 17. Assuming Wanzeler chose an efficient route, he would have passed through New Hampshire and Vermont prior to arriving at Lacolle.
What he did with time on his hands in Canada is unclear, potentially leading to questions about whether he retrieved TelexFree cash that might have been stockpiled north of the U.S. border. Also unclear is why Wanzeler allegedly chose to fly out of Toronto, roughly six hours from the Lacolle crossing in Quebec. Montreal is much closer to Lacolle.
Toronto is about 281 miles from Lacolle, according to maps. Montreal is only about 41 miles.
TelexFree is alleged to be a combined pyramid- and Ponzi scheme that may have gathered $1.2 billion.
NOTE: Thanks to the ASD Updates Blog.
