Search broadens for missing ex-hedge fund manager (partner to John Ellis - Bush cousin)

[UpInArms]

Source: Reuters

BOSTON, June 11 (Reuters) - The manhunt for a hedge fund manager who skipped his prison date and may have killed himself dragged into a third day on Wednesday as police look for a body and other agents search for a rich man who may be on the run.

Police thought Samuel Israel III, who was scheduled to begin serving a 20-year prison term for fraud on June 9, may have plunged to his death after finding his abandoned car on the Bear Mountain Bridge in New York.

The words "suicide is painless" were written on it. The phrase was the title of the theme song from the television show "M*A*S*H."

But with no body found, other government agencies quickly jumped on the case and are now broadening their search for the man who engineered the $1.8 trillion hedge fund industry's most brazen and long-running fraud.

Israel, 48, and his partners pocketed millions as investors in his Bayou Group hedge fund lost more than $400 million over eight years, court papers show.

"We haven't found him yet," Tim Miller, an investigator with the New York State Police said on Wednesday, explaining that the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service are looking for a person while police are looking for a body.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN1144247720080611?sp=true

---

here's the connection:

Bayou and the Bush Cousin

A first cousin of President Bush is emerging as a peripheral player in the increasingly bizarre Bayou Management hedge fund scandal.

Sources say John P. Ellis, a former journalist turned investment banker, represented several companies in investment presentations to IM Partners, a side venture set up by Samuel Israel and Daniel Marino. Israel and Marino were the management team that ran Bayou and who federal prosecutors allege defrauded investors out of $300 million.

People familiar with the Bayou saga say Ellis, a personal friend of Israel for the past several years, helped arranged at least five investment deals for IM Partners while working as a managing director for GH Venture Partners, a New York City-based investment bank. In all, IM Partners, a Connecticut-based investment partnership, invested at least $25 million in deals handled by GH Venture.

<snip>

A former columnist for the Boston Globe, Ellis may be best known for his work as an electoral consultant for Fox News during the 2000 presidential election. It was Ellis' analysis of the Florida vote total that led Fox to declare Bush the victor before any of the other networks.

<snip>

IM Partners also invested $2 million in Debit Direct, another Isle of Man company with close ties to Kycos. Last year IM Partners and Marino, who is listed as the general partner of IM Partners, sued Debit Direct in federal court seeking the return of its money. The lawsuit is still pending.

It's believed that IM Partners stands for Israel Marino Partners.

...more...

[blm]

1. Typical turn of events for those who live in and die in service to the BFEE.

.

[Lautremont]

2. I always wondered why they were called "hedge funds."

I assumed it had something to do with hedging your bets, but apparently it means that if you manage one, the odds are one day you'll be found dead in a hedge.

[acmavm]

3. Dead? I doubt it. With the kind of money these guys steal, he

most likely has a slush fund somewhere offshore and he's taken off for parts unknown, like say Mark Rich did for example.

[SpiralHawk]

4. "He's hiding out on a tropical isle with me & other republicon cronies. Smirk." - Kenny Boy Lay

[KansDem]

5. John Ellis is the one who called the 2000 election for his cousin while at FOX

Fox executive spoke five times with cousin Bush on Election Night

December 12, 2000
Web posted at: 9:24 AM EST (1424 GMT)

NEW YORK (AP) -- The head of Fox's projection team said he spoke five times with his cousin, George W. Bush, on election night but insists he did not give out confidential exit poll information. Bush got that information elsewhere, he said.

John Ellis, an election night consultant for Fox, was hired by Inside.com to write an account of what happened that night; it was posted on the Web site Monday. Ellis is becoming a regular columnist for the online publication's new magazine, Inside.

Publicity about his relationship to Bush has proved an embarrassment to Fox, whose executives were angry with him Monday for writing about it. The network is still investigating whether Ellis, who was working on a temporary contract, provided the Bush campaign with insider data.

Fox was criticized for having a Bush cousin as director of its team responsible for projecting the presidential race. The network, and Ellis, said an executive above Ellis had the final say on whether a state was called.
--more--

CNN

[tanyev]

8. It was a temporary contract????

Oh, for feck's sake. How CONVEEEEEENIENT. Hadn't heard that before.

:grr:

[The Animator]

6. Yeah, he's probably left this suicide note as a red herring..

while the police are looking for his dead body, he's busy fleeing across the Canadian border, and beyond.

[sam sarrha]

7. he's hang'n out with Ken Lay living it up high in some decadent hide out somewhere