Rodrigues protests Brazilian warrant arrest (Interpol)
Not too happy with being detained after posting bail in the visa fraud case against him, Sann Rodrigues has requested the court order his release.
As we covered yesterday, after posting $200,000 bail in the visa fraud case, Rodrigues was arrested again on a separate Brazilian warrant.
The case has yet to play out, with Rodrigues remaining in custody despite bail conditions set in the visa fraud case.
To that end Rodrigues has filed a “Motion For Release From Custody” yesterday, asking the court to adhere to the visa fraud bail conditions.
The Motion lays out Rodrigues current predicament;
On June 26, 2015 Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler ordered the Defendant released on secured bond and conditions. Defendant was held to June 29, 2015 for release.
On June 26, 2015 the Defendant posted a bond in the amount of $200,000.00 by certified check.
On June 29, 2015 the Defendant was not released by the United States Marshalls.
US Marshalls have detained the Defendant on the Brazil Warrant which had been revealed to the court in New Jersey and Massachusetts in prior hearings.
At all times relevant this Honorable Court and the United States Attorney’s Office were aware of a warrant in Brazil.
Whether or not the court and DOJ being aware of the Brazilian warrant will see him released is unclear. I’m not exactly sure what the legal argument is there, but Rodrigues is arguing that because he ‘has complied with all terms of his release‘ in the visa fraud case, that he should be released.
The Brazilian warrant was issued after Rodrigues was ordered not to leave the country following a raid on an iFreeX event Rodrigues spoke at. Instead of complying with the directive, Rodrigues fled Brazil for the US.
This prompted the issuing of an Interpol Red Notice, which I believe is what Rodrigues is currently being held on.
In Brazil, Rodrigues is wanted for tax evasion and not obeying a judicial order. The Interpol notice cites Rodrigues as wanted for prosecution.
As to what happens next, we’ll have to wait and see. I don’t believe Rodrigues will be released, but with two separate criminal cases against him now, there might be some issues proceeding.
After being sentenced in the US, will Rodrigues serve time there and then be deported to Brazil for trial? Or will he be sentenced in the US, sent to Brazil for trial, sent back to serve his US sentence and then sent to Brazil once more to serve out a sentence there?
Meanwhile the parallels between Rodrigues current situation and the whole TelexFree SEC / bankruptcy fracas hasn’t gone unnoticed.
Stay tuned…
Footnote: Our thanks to Don@ASDUpdates for a copy of Rodrigues “Motion For Release”, and Joaldro Dalla Costa for a heads up on the Rodrigues’ Interpol Red Notice.
Update 10th July 2015 – A hearing on this matter has been scheduled for the 10th of July at 2:30pm. Depending on what issues are brought up in court, could be a very interesting hearing.
Sann has no case here. He can file the motion, but those are fundamentally completely different jurisdictions.
Technically speaking, ICE is in charge of his visa fraud case, and ICE is a domestic agency. The Brazilian Interpol Red Notice is sent through Interpol to one of 66 different liaisons in the US (both Federal and state agencies) and one of them arrested Sann on completely separate charges.
I’m going to guess U.S. Marshall service, but I don’t know.
i’m betting rodriques wont be released, because the interpol red corner notice is about his disobeying a brazilian court order, and has nothing to do with his visa fraud case in the US.
rodriques has committed several crimes ie foneclub settlement violation [civil/criminal], telexfree [civil], ifreex [not yet charged], fleeing brazil [criminal/interpol] and now visa fraud [criminal].
does he expect one bail to cover all his crimes?
if you do crimes in plural you will get charged prosecuted and sentenced in plural.
sann rodriques has finally run out of luck. no more mcdonalds fine dining celebrations for him, for a long time!
an interpol red notice is :
a red corner notice seeks to locate and arrest a person wanted by another jurisdiction with a view to extradite him to that jurisdiction.
i don’t see the US extraditing rodriques till they’re done with him. i think they are going to put him through the wringer and extract all the cooperation they can for the telexfree criminal case against merril and wanzeler.
Won’t they have a hearing to decide what to do with Rodrigues? In the meantime he’s being held on that “international arrest warrant” isn’t he?
maybe, and the DOJ may say they need him first.
OTOH, if the entire idea is to get rid of Sann’s residency status, sending him back to brazil in balls and chains would do the same thing.
Sann should be fighting his pending extradition, instead of worrying about bail. He doesn’t even realize he’s fighting the wrong battle.
Correct, but Sann Rodrigues was “not released”.
He wasn’t first released on bail and then arrested again.
He actually has a case there. The U.S. Marshal service will need to respect the highest authority = the court order. They can’t use an Interpol “Red Notice” as an argument to set aside the court order.
There’s no doubt that the court has the highest rank here, “the power to decide whether Rodrigues should remain detained or be released”.
The U.S. Marshals service can’t release him and then re-arrest him either, using the “Red Notice” as an argument. They can’t set aside an existing order, that order will first need to be reversed or modified by the court itself or a higher court.
It doesn’t mean that Sann Rodrigues is being “protected” from being arrested. He’s only “protected” from conflicting instructions.
IF as he argues, the US enforcement agencies knew of the bond hearing, had an opportunity to object… and the court knew of the Interpol Notice and still approved the bond with conditions of supervised release, then why is he still in custody?
The bond was approved with the pertinent facts and parties’ interest taken into account.
the court order granted bail in the visa fraud case.
i have not seen the court order, but i don’t think it will mention a red corner notice of the interpol regarding rodrigue’s escape from brazil.
the US marshalls did not keep rodrigues in custody in defiance of the court order. they RE-arrested him on the date he was to be released, under a different warrant.
rodrigue’s will probably have to apply for fresh bail in the brazil/interpol case, and fight extradition to brazil. seeing his history, the bail amount may be high. how is he going to pay it?
the court was also aware of rodrigues involvement in telexfree, USA. the court may have also been aware of the interpol red notice.
these facts about the defendant rodrigues, would help the court calculate the severity of his crimes and his ‘flight risk’ and help set the bond amount accordingly.
keeping rodrigues other crimes in mind, the court according set bail at a relatively high amount of 200,000$. maybe if he had no other crimes under his belt the bail amount may have been much lower.
so, even though the court may have ‘known’ of rodrigues interpol notice, i don’t think the bail in the visa fraud case covers the interpol arrest warrant.
that is a different case, it has not been ‘clubbed’ with the visa fraud case and telexfree US investigation.
Is bail even an option on the Brazilian warrant?
They booked him in the TelexFree case, and he went off to Brazil and continued to scam.
They booked him Brazil for scamming, explicitly told him not to leave the country and he fled to the US.
At what point do you just go “right, no bail for you”?
“Multiple bails” doesn’t exactly sound like a functional idea? 🙂
* One bail in the Visa fraud case.
* One bail in the Interpol case.
* One bail for violating the injunction in the Universo PhoneClub case.
You have probably made up that explanation to make it fit a theory you have.
I used the opposite method. I looked at the realities of the case as it had been described. Sann Rodrigues was NOT released from detention on June 29th, like the court had ordered.
The Interpol arrest warrant is in conflict with the court order. The court has ordered Sann Rodrigues to be released on bail on June 29th. It hasn’t ordered him to be re-arrested immediately.
The court didn’t decide any conditions where the U.S. Marshal service could evaluate a related case, e.g. “do we have other arrests warrants on him we can use as an argument to keep him detained?”.
CONFLICTING ORDERS
When there’s conflict between orders from different authorities, then we must look at “Which order has the highest authority (in this case)?” and follow that one.
And “this case” was about whether or not Sann Rodrigues should be released on bail on June 29th. If they really wanted to hold him in detention, they could have had it included in the court order as a condition. “Sann Rodrigues will be temporarily released on bail, etc.”.
It hasn’t been brought up before a U.S. court yet, so “bail or no bail” isn’t very relevant.
It doesn’t make much sense extraditing Sann Rodrigues to Brazil when he’s facing criminal charges in the U.S.? It should normally make it more difficult to prosecute him in the U.S. if they send him to Brazil first. 🙂
The U.S. court should normally give the highest priority to its own case. Extraditing a part of him isn’t an option either.
my preliminary finding is that bail in extradition cases is uncommon in the US.
when a foreign country or a foreign embassy or the interpol contacts US authorities for arresting a fugitive, the US authorities do a detailed study into the case against the fugitive and the strength of the extradition case against him.
if they find all parameters to be satisfactory they get a US federal district judge or magistrate judge to issue an arrest warrant. the local office of the US marshalls then arrests the fugitive.
the extradition judge may consider ‘bail’ at this hearing or defer the bail hearing to a later date.
but keep in mind that :
i guess the US takes this strict stance, because releasing an international fugitive on bail, can create great embarrassment if the fugitive flees US shores.
given rodrigues penchant for fleeing, the court will be doubly strict with him.
i think the US authorities have planned this thing out in great detail.just like rodrigue’s has been playing with the justice system, they have played him back and outplayed him.
they knew he would get bail in the visa fraud case [bail is normally given in visa cases], they took all the money he could arrange, and then trapped his ass in the legally much stronger grip of an interpol red notice extradition case.
i mean, did rodrigue’s really think he could saunter into the US and outsmart the US authorites? it’s not like walking into mcdonalds!
why?
different cases mean different warrants and prosecution and court hearings and bails.
the cases against rodrigue’s haven’t been clubbed together to the best of my information.
justice is not a wholesale shop.
haha 🙂
how do you know?
he may have been released on bail in the visa fraud case and immediately arrested in the interpol red notice extradition case.
the paperwork at the US marshall’s offices will reflect this^^
Try to handle it in reality?
With 3 different bail orders, two of them would have denied him to leave the state, while the third one would have allowed him to leave it.
He could of course have filed two motions, “those two orders beat that single one”.
I would probably have filed 3 different motions.
* Friday, August 29
* Saturday, August 30
* Sunday, August 31
Or maybe 3 Saturdays in a row? 🙂
Multiple bail orders would have allowed “creative people” to trick the court system if each of those orders had to be seen as separate orders from different cases.
It could probably have worked in a different type of case, sending only the part of him that had been involved in the alleged crime. But it doesn’t work in this case. 🙂
the requirement for multiple bail orders, would ensure that creative criminal people who creatively commit various crimes, cannot get away easy by one bail and one trial and one sentencing.
if merril had three separate bail orders he would require three different permissions to attend something in durham. this would just make his life tougher, which is what he should deserve if he committed three different crimes.
what? you want single window clearance for different crimes?
if an overly creative person takes advantage of permission under a single bail order to travel, the authorities can immediately arrest him for defying the bail conditions in the other bail orders.
multiple crimes = multiple bails and trials and shit = tough legally expensive non enjoyable life = go to durham but you won’t be happy
so norway, are you saying the US marshall’s have broken US law?
Arresting someone upon release isn’t new. Heck SFPD even tried to interview a possible witness WHILE he’s outside a court room on a separate case in presence of his lawyer.
When the lawyer objected they arrest her for obstruction. It was all over the news a while back and police chief had to apologize.
Article updated with news of a hearing on the Brazilian warrant arrest on the 10th of July.
He ain’t getting out.
According to one of the attorneys on Prisontalk Forum, this is done all the time. Jurisdiction B can put a “detainer” on the prisoner in Jurisdiction A so they can be there to arrest him (for a different crime) upon him bailing out of jurisdiction A.
Which is what happened to Sann here. He was arrested by HSI/ICE for visa fraud. If he bailed out, he’s now detained by US Marshal Service by Interpol warrant out of Brazil. He has no chance.
NOLINK://www.prisontalk.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-566782.html
rodriques will beg for bail and be denied.
The result …
It looks like they had some difficulties identifying the correct practice here.
it’s looks like there were legal technical difficulties here, in that the interpol red notice against rodriques, was not sufficient for washington interpol to move a court for permission to detain/arrest rodriques and allow the US marshalls to arrest him, on the basis of his arrest warrant in brazil.
in international extradition cases, the country which receives the extradition request first studies the case to see if it meets all the required parameters, and only then takes action.
something in rodriques arrest/extradition interpol alert, based on his activities in brazil, has fallen short of the test here.
Correct. They couldn’t simply “follow the rules”, they had to identify the correct rules first, the most relevant ones.
If they had “followed the rules” and had extradited Rodrigues to Brazil, the Visa fraud case in the U.S. would have been ruined. Rodrigues would have been legally “unavailable” for prosecution in that case, “legally unable to defend himself in court in the U.S.”.
He would probably have been legally unavailable for the Telexfree case too. I’m not sure about that one, but he would most likely have been “legally unavailable” in that case too.
It simply wouldn’t have made any sense to “follow the wrong rules” here.