EConnect founder awaits trial in jail after disobeying order. (Wall Street West).To most Angelenos, the holiday weather has been seasonally balmy, but Thomas Hughes
Thomas Hughes (October 20, 1822 – March 22, 1896) was an English lawyer and author. , founder and ex-chief executive of the San Pedro company eConnect Inc., must be feeling a chill from his downtown L.A. jail cell. Hughes, whose questionable claims were the subject of a Business Journal story in October 2001, has been incarcerated incarcerated /in·car·cer·at·ed/ (in-kahr´ser-at?ed) imprisoned; constricted; subjected to incarceration. in·car·cer·at·ed adj. Confined or trapped, as a hernia. since Sept. 19, when U.S. District Court Judge Nora Manella revoked his bail on charges related to his alleged touting of eConnect stock. Hughes was indicted INDICTED, practice. When a man is accused by a bill of indictment preferred by a grand jury, he is said to be indicted. in August on seven criminal charges, including securities fraud, wire fraud and contempt of a permanent injunction permanent injunction n. a final order of a court that a person or entity refrain from certain activities permanently or take certain actions (usually to correct a nuisance) until completed. obtained by the Securities and Exchange Commission in a previous run-in in April 2000. Out on bail, Hughes apparently couldn't keep himself from issuing yet another press release on Sept. 5--this one proclaiming his innocence and arguing that the government charges that he intentionally misled investors were "not true." That was apparently enough for Manella, who ordered Hughes detained pending trial. A trial date is currently set for Jan. 21, said Hughes' criminal defense lawyer, Michael Artan. Which means that Hughes will spend the holidays at the Metropolitan Detention Center "Metropolitan Dentention Center" refers to a series of federal detention facilities (prisons) located throughout the United States. They are run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. , where visitors are limited to close family members. "He's coping as well as can be expected," Artan said. "Mr. Hughes had no intent to defraud To make a Misrepresentation of an existing material fact, knowing it to be false or making it recklessly without regard to whether it is true or false, intending for someone to rely on the misrepresentation and under circumstances in which such person does rely on it to his or anyone, and he intends to vigorously defend himself." Absent from the Hughes defense team will be Irving Einhorn, the former SEC regional director in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. who arranged Hughes' April 2000 settlement and helped vet the company's public statements. He was formally replaced in September. "They weren't able to pay me," Einhorn said. Lacking cash, eConnect offered him stock. "No thank you," Einhorn recalled saying. "I never really got into the new case." As for eConnect, it brought in new management shortly after Hughes was jailed. (He resigned in October.) At its Web site last week, a message said the site was "temporarily unavailable for maintenance purposes." |
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