Alleged Ponzi schemer Kenneth Starr could return to his Manhattan apartment soon, provided he can cobble together $10 million in bail.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin said Starr could be released from jail provided his wife and brothers could come up with the bond package. Starr was arrested in May and charged with defrauding celebrity clients such as Uma Thurman and Carly Simon to the tune of $60 million. He has pled not guilty to those charges.
Starr had been seeking a $2 million bail.
Starr’s attorney Flora Edwards did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment, but Edwards told the judge that the only collateral her client had to offer was his brother's $1.7 million rare book collection, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Judge Scheindlin said that was insufficient and that the financial adviser’s brothers, Warren and Stuart, must offer up their Virginia and Connecticut houses, a Florida condo and some $250,000.
Starr, who was once a fixture of the Manhattan social scene, won’t be putting up the money himself. His assets have been frozen and his company Starr and Company is being controlled by a court appointed receiver.
The U.S. attorney’s office had filed an opposition to Starr’s bail request, saying that he posed a “serious flight risk.” In the filing, prosecutors argues that risk is even more severe given that he faces up to 445 years in prison and his ties to the investment world have been severed by the negative publicity.
Further, the opposition brief contends that the circumstances surrounding Starr’s arrest, during which he hid in the closet of his Manhattan condominium to avoid capture, indicated his willingness to flee.
On Tuesday the judge required that Starr’s bond have four signatories. In addition to Warren and Stuart Starr, the bond’s original signatories, Starr’s wife Diane Passage and friend charter jet executive Michael Giordano added their names to the bond, DNAInfo.com reports.
