Convicted Bayou Group Co-Founder Samuel Israel Disappears: Suicide Or Escape?

Samuel Israel III, co-founder of now-defunct hedge fund Bayou Group LLC who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in April, has disappeared. He was scheduled to report to a federal prison in Massachusetts on Monday but failed to show, and his 2006 GMC Envoy was found in Westchester County, New York by the Bear Mountain Bridge with keys in the ignition and “suicide is painless” written in the dust on the hood. Has he committed suicide, as Kirk Wright recently did? Or has he pulled a Rebecca Parrett? No body has yet been found. WNBC reports that a surveillance camera appears to show a second vehicle pulling alongside the Envoy but that it’s not clear if he entered it. AP reports that the FBI, state police and victims of his fraud are skeptical. Bloomberg has more.