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[XenaLives]

2018 update on Jim Bolt - see post replied to:

Judge denies bid from Arkansas businessman to void fraud sentence
by Dave Hughes | June 15, 2018 at 4:30 a.m.


FORT SMITH -- A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a motion by a Rogers businessman to vacate his 100-month prison sentence, $2.5 million restitution order and $50,000 fine because the man believed he was inadequately represented in his criminal case.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks accepted the report and recommendation that U.S. Magistrate Mark Ford made in October to James Bolt's motion after Ford heard Bolt's arguments during a two-day hearing in September. Brooks also rejected Bolt's numerous objections, argued over the past several months, to Ford's recommendation.

Bolt pleaded guilty in January 2014 to wire and mail fraud. Initially, he had been charged in a 14-count indictment in 2013 with wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering. The charges accused him of falsifying documents to obtain unclaimed property that was donated to California and Nevada.

The charges to which he pleaded guilty involved obtaining assets from California, but the restitution order included $2.5 million he received from schemes to obtain assets from California and Nevada.

Bolt pleaded guilty to using his Rogers company, Situs Cancer Research Center, to obtain unclaimed assets from the California government that belonged to Community Medical Group of Corona Inc.

According to court records, Bolt faxed a forged donation agreement to the California government in May 2011 in which Community Medical Group purportedly agreed to donate its unclaimed property to Situs. California turned over the assets to Situs.

The FBI began investigating Bolt and Situs in August 2012, court records said. Agents contacted Community Medical Group executives, who denied ever having a donation agreement with Bolt or Situs and said they had never heard of either. They said the Community Medical Group officers whose signatures were on the agreement did not exist. The notary was fictitious as well.

In his motion to vacate, Bolt said he was innocent of the mail and wire fraud charges and that the government prosecuted him to get even for failing to convict him in a 2007 trial on fraud charges against him and others.

He also charged that he had inadequate representation. He said the attorney who represented him in the criminal case, Herbert Southern of Fayetteville, forced him to accept his plea agreement with the government.

Southern also had a conflict of interest, Bolt said, because of a relationship he had with Robert Cessario, the FBI agent who was investigating Bolt. Southern testified during the hearing that Bolt did not object but thought the relationship between Southern and Cessario could help his case.

Bolt accused his appeal attorney, Andrew Miller of Rogers, of inadequate representation for failing to argue to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the government violated his plea agreement by advocating a lengthier sentence than what was in the plea agreement.

continued...

https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2018/jun/15/judge-denies-bid-to-void-sentence-20180/