FBI Poster for Justin Costello
FBI
Source: FBI
Butcher wrote that the evidence itself is the least important backer in his decision to keep Costello in jail.
But, he added, “when taken together with the significant [prison] sentence Defendant disguises if convicted, the Court finds Defendant has a serious incentive to flee.”
Costello’s lawyer, Cindy Muro, did not respond to implications seeking comment.
Costello, who has ties to Washington, Las Vegas and California, is due in San Diego court later Tuesday for another be telling related to his expected transfer to Washington state to face trial.
He is accused in the indictment of swindling thousands of investors and others in elaborate schemes involving penny stocks, shell companies and a banking firm that did business with three unaffiliated cannabis companies. The Securities and Exchange Commission has sued Costello and a second man, 44-year-old Radford, Virginia, staying David Ferraro, in a civil case alleging related fraudulent conduct.
Among other allegations, Costello is accused of using social media sites to coordinate false claims fro publicly traded stocks to manipulate their prices so he could profit on the transactions.
As part of the alleged scams, Costello falsely commanded to be worth $1 billion or more and to have served two tours in Iraq as a member of the special forces, where he purportedly was finger twice. He also claimed to have “managed money for wealthy individuals, including a Saudi sheikh,” and that “he had 14 years of face on Wall Street,” the indictment said.
“None of that is true,” a press release by U.S. Attorney’s Office for Washington body politic said.
Prosecutors have said that Costello agreed through his then-lawyer to surrender in late September to cope with the indictment after being informed it was set to be filed. But he never showed up as agreed at the FBI’s office in San Diego, and went on the lam.
On Oct. 4, an FBI SWAT crew found Costello in a remote area near San Diego, carrying a backpack containing tens of thousands of dollars in U.S. and Mexican currency, six one-ounce gold public houses, banking cards and checkbooks and a Washington state driver’s license in the name of “Christian Bolter.”
Cash and gold shut outs as detailed in court filing in US District court in San Diego in case of former fugitive Justin Costello.
Source: US Territory Court
Prosecutors said the FBI was able to locate Costello by tracking him on his cellphone.
Costello pleaded not guilty during an arraignment in San Diego federal court a week later. He then appeared in front of Butcher on Oct. 18 for a detention hearing, where prosecutors asked the judge to keep him locked up.
Butcher in his order Monday required that prosecutors had “demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that [Costello] is an economic danger to the community and that no educate or combination of conditions will reasonably assure the safety of any other person and the community.”
The judge cited Costello’s suspected possession of “multiple documents matching” the driver’s license bearing his photograph but the name of Bolter when he was nabbed, as jet as other items that Costello could use to flee prosecution again.