PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Cranston estate planner Joseph A. Caramadre is asking a federal appeals court to free him as he awaits sentencing for his role in an investment scheme that targeted the terminally ill.
Caramadre argues U.S. District Court Judge William E. Smith got it wrong when he ordered him held as a potential suicidal risk to himself. Smith declined to release him at a hearing June 18 in which Smith commented "I don't know what to believe when you get on the stand and testify because you've lied multiple times and you have to live with that reality."
Caramadre argued in appealing to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Smith ignored case law "in favor of a determination based upon a flight of fancy regarding a (non-existent) risk of Mr. Caramadre hurting himself; and what is best described as a fit of pique regarding Mr. Caramadre's attempt to withdraw his guilty plea."
Smith in May rejected Caramadre's bid to withdraw his guilty pleas to fraud and conspiracy as meritless, bizarre and a cynical attempt to manipulate the court. Caramadre faces up to 10 years in prison.