A federal judge in New York today granted a 30-day continuance in the case of Arthur Nadel, the 76-year-old Florida hedge fund manager accused in a "mini-Madoff" scheme.
The move will let Nadel find a new attorney after a federal court refused to unfreeze his assets to let him pay for his old ones.
Nadel disappeared for two weeks in January around the time the six funds he managed went bust. He has been jailed since his arrest on Jan. 27, having failed to make a $5 million bond.
Nadel is currently housed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York—the same facility where Bernanrd Madoff is being held. Under the court order approved today, prosecutors now have until April 29 to either get an indictment against Nadel or secure a guilty plea. The continuance was granted, according to the order, to allow Nadel "to obtain new counsel and for new counsel to review certain pre-indictment discovery."
Nadel's funds, which operated under the names "Scoop," "Valhalla," "Viking" and "Victory," collapsed in January.
Nadel is charged in a three-count criminal complaint. Authorities say he had claimed to investors that the funds were worth up to $350 million, when in fact he had diverted nearly all of that money to himself, his family, his other businesses, and to several charities in Southwest Florida.
