Think I'll go get in a round of golf....
"79-year-old Watertown real estate developer is a fugitive from justice" by Michael Levenson Globe Staff June 01, 2017
Robert H. Bray makes for an unlikely fugitive from justice.
He is 79 and suffers from various age-related health issues, according to court records. Two days before he was to report to federal prison to begin serving a two-year sentence for insider trading, he showed up at the emergency room at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge with a ruptured vein in his leg. A day later, his doctor recommended that he see a vascular surgeon.
And then, apparently, he vanished. That was two weeks ago.
Federal authorities confirmed this week that they have launched a nationwide manhunt for the 6-foot-5, 270-pound Watertown real estate developer, who was convicted last year of securities fraud and ordered to spend two years at the federal prison in Devens for inmates with serious medical conditions.
“We are able to confirm there is a federal warrant for his arrest for failing to appear for his prison sentence,” Neil Sullivan, a deputy US marshal, told The Boston Globe. “It’s anyone’s guess at this point [where he is], if he’s still local or if he’s on the other side of the country, but time will tell.”
Why wasn't he remanded into custody like a normal person would have been?
Oh, right, it's AmeriKan JU$TUS in the 21$t-century.
Vincent Luca, who has known Bray for more than 40 years, said he was shocked that his friend is on the run from federal authorities. Luca said he last spoke to Bray in mid-May, a week before he was scheduled to report to Devens.
“He was resigned,” said Luca, who is 80 and lives in Florida. “He knew he was going away that week. He said, ‘I’d love to have you visit.’ ”
The sudden disappearance of the ailing convict opens a strange new chapter in a saga that began nearly seven years ago at the Oakley Country Club in Watertown.
There, over drinks at the bar, Bray allegedly told John Patrick O’Neill, a fellow club member and former Eastern Bank executive, that he needed to make a “big score” to help fund one of his real estate projects. He asked O’Neill if he had any stock tips, according to prosecutors.
O’Neill, who was occasionally involved in acquisitions and mergers, wrote “Wainwright” on a cocktail napkin and passed it to Bray, who slipped it in his pocket. A day later, Bray, who owned a construction company for 30 years along with other businesses, called his broker and asked to buy 25,000 shares in Wainwright Bank, acknowledging that the trade “kinda sounds crazy,” given that the stock was thinly traded.
But two weeks later, Eastern Bank announced an agreement to acquire Wainwright, causing the value of the stock to double. Bray then sold his shares for about $300,000 in profit over the next several months.
The windfall came back to haunt Bray and O’Neill when federal securities regulators began requesting information from Eastern Bank about the heavy trading in Wainwright stock in the weeks before the acquisition was announced.
In 2014, O’Neill pleaded guilty in US District Court to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and testified at Bray’s trial.
Not big enough to be too big to jail.
In January 2016, Bray was convicted of one count of securities fraud. He was 78 at the time and faced 20 years in prison and a fine $5 million.
But Bray’s lawyer, Joseph W. Monahan III, asked for a more lenient sentence of six months of home confinement and a $100,000 fine. Monahan told the court that Bray suffers from “several different serious health problems, as would be expected of anyone his age” and that to imprison him would deprive him of care by the same doctor he has seen for 20 years.
US District Judge William G. Young ordered Bray to serve two years in prison and pay a $1 million fine. After Bray lost an appeal earlier this year, Young ordered Bray to report to Devens on May 19. But Bray never showed up.
Two days before Bray was to surrender to federal authorities, he arrived at the Mount Auburn emergency room with a broken a varicose vein in his leg, which was packed and bandaged, according to a letter from his doctor, Stephen P. Ranere, filed in federal court.
A day later, on May 18, Ranere examined Bray’s leg and recommended that he see a vascular surgeon. Bray also told Monahan that day about the emergency room visit, according to court records.
On May 19, the date Bray’s prison term was to begin, Monahan asked Young for an emergency, 21-day extension so that Bray could be evaluated by a vascular surgeon. Young rejected the request that day.
A federal warrant was issued for Bray’s arrest three days later, on May 22.
Sullivan, the deputy US marshal, declined to detail the manhunt for Bray, saying it was early in the investigation. Reached by phone on Wednesday, Monahan said, “I have no comment. Have a nice day,” and hung up. Ranere could not be reached.
Last year, Monahan argued in court that Bray has strong ties to his family and community. Bray was the owner of R&B Construction, a real estate development company that renovated labs and other buildings at Harvard University. He also owned a laundromat on River Street in Cambridge. Court records show he has two brothers and one sister, who are in their late 70s and early 80s and live in New Hampshire. Monahan told the court last year the siblings like to visit each other frequently.
Yeah, have sympathy for the devil.
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Looks like they have another Whitey Bulger on their hands.
Anybody check the links?
