Update: Sammmy's Time Machine

Although it's hard to believe anything that The Post's Page Six publishes (their writers do have a habit of blackmailing people), the story has a ring of true wishful thinking. An anonymous trader who worked with Samuel Israel the Third in the mid-90s tipped off one of Richard Johnson's henchmen that the fugitive (now Armed and Dangerous) boasted to him that he built a time machine, and even brought acquaintances to see the contraption:

"This guy Sam was crazy and told people he was actually working on a time machine for the government," said our source. "He brought two of my friends from Wall Street into his basement and showed them some contraption. Now that's a nutcase."--NY Post, Page Six, 6/18/08, "Fled to the Past"

As I recall in the movie, Rod Taylor went back to the past and far into the future with his machine courtesy of the mind of H.G. Wells. In the future man was mute, enslaved by slavering overlords who fattened them up for food. Think progress.

Maybe he brought it with him in the RV. I'm sure his investors would love to step into it and set it backwards to the '90s. In fact, if it were possible according to the law of physics, all Wall Street financial institutions would leap into it and dial it back to the 1990s.

What Makes Sammy Run?

According to today's NY Times, the girlfriend of Samuel Israel III, Debra Ryan, was just indicted for aiding and abetting Sam's flight from justice on June 9.

Sam pleaded guilty in 2005 to defrauding investors of more than $400 million through his Bayou hedge fund. He was supposed to report to prison for a 20-year sentence on June 9. Instead, authorities found his abandoned GMC Enterprise SUV on the shoulder of the Bear Mountain Bridge overhanging the Hudson River with the phrase, "Suicide is Painless" scrawled in dust on its hood. No trace of Sammy. Although the bridge has had its share of suicide dives, the bodies were usually recovered within hours.

The investors in Bayou were furious. Not only was he sentenced to prison, he also agreed to pay back millions of pilfered dollars. They were not amused nor fooled by his middle finger homage to a cheeky anti-war movie. They knew who it was directed at.

As to the details coughed up by Ms. Ryan: Two days before his date with the slammer, the two of them packed up his white 2007 Coach Freelander Recreational Vehicle, NY license number EEN-5973. They attached a blue 2005 Yamaha motor scooter to it. Early in the morning of June 9 she drove her car alongside him driving the RV to a rest stop near Interstate 684, where he left the RV. Then she drove him back to their home in Armonk, NY, where presumably he got into his GMC Enterprise SUV and drove to the Bear Mountain Bridge to stage his poorly executed suicide attempt.

I'll be glad to work on the Sammy case for a 10% finders fee. It shouldn't be too difficult. I'll just keep my eye out for a portly, baldish white collar criminal with a bad back on a motor scooter or the same driving a barge-like RV with a nationally broadcast license number.