Financier Frankel Back in U.S. to Face Fraud Charges

Nearly two years after he fled the country, financier Martin R. Frankel was returned to the U.S. to face charges of defrauding insurance companies of more than $200 million.

Frankel was presented before U.S. District Court in New Haven, Conn., on Sunday, a day earlier than planned because of a winter storm bearing down on the region.

“He was detained without bond,” said John Durham, counsel for the U.S. attorney’s office in New Haven. “It was just his initial presentment; nothing dramatic occurred.”

Frankel’s arraignment, when he pleads guilty or not guilty to charges of racketeering and fraud, will be held a week from today. In the meantime, he is being detained at the Northern Correctional Institution in Somers, the state’s highest-security prison. In his court appearance Sunday, Frankel was advised of his rights.

Frankel was extradited from Germany on Friday after Hamburg prison officials caught him trying to saw through the bars of his cell.

Toledo, Ohio-born Frankel was arrested in a Hamburg hotel in September 1999 after a three-month flight from U.S authorities. He was later convicted of failing to pay import duties on about $8 million worth of diamonds and of possession of nine false passports, and was jailed for three years by a Hamburg court.

Frankel’s arrest came after a U.S. federal grand jury returned a 36-count indictment against him. The charges ranged from money laundering to racketeering, and alleged the former stockbroker systematically drained money from insurers he controlled from his 12-room mansion in Greenwich, Conn.

Frankel said during his Hamburg trial he’d rather remain in Germany where it’s “against the constitution to kill somebody.”