Buckhannon, facing an April 24, 2017 federal fraud trial for his alleged role in a $34 million hedge fund fraud and currently the focus of an investigation by the Battle Creek Police department and the ATF into the suspicious December 30, 2013 fire that destroyed Battle Creek's On Deck Sports Bar & Grill wants to fly to Ecuador to celebrate his mother's 75th birthday.
You read that correctly.
Buckhannon booked the trip on September 19, and his itinerary shows that he's scheduled to depart from Miami at 9:55pm on October 26, arriving early the next morning in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
Buckhannon is scheduled to return to Miami on November 13.
The stipulation filed today on behalf of Buckhannon reveals his attorney “has communicated with the Assistant United States Attorney, Kathryn Newman and Pretrial Officer, Kamuela Kapanui, and Mr. Kapanui and Ms. Newman have no objection to the request for travel”.
Somebody's certainly leading a charmed life!
Two years ago, shortly after Buckhannon was arrested and charged with conspiracy and fraud relating to a $34 million dollar hedge fund swindle, Buckhannon's court-appointed defense lawyer argued that the “crooked chiropractor” was “broke with an expired passport and doesn’t have money to flee the country”.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn Newman herself argued in October 2014 for Buckhannon's detention. She said hundreds of investors lost money in the hedge fund scheme and “$13.1 million was still missing”. Newman argued that Buckhannon was “a flight risk, with relatives and co-conspirators living outside the United States.”
So Buckhannon was broke two years ago, with an expired passport but now he and Zia Shlaimoun (who may be called as a witness in Buckhannon's upcoming fraud trial) are embroiled in a multi-million dispute with Advanced Biomedical over the purchase of a testing lab, and AUSA Newman has rubber-stamped his request to head to South America?
Ecuador has an enviably loopholed extradition treaty with the United States, but Buckhannon, given a two-week head start, could go anywhere.
