A judge refused to let Joshua Allen out of federal custody between now and his December 10 sentencing date. Allen and his business partner Michael Cox, both of Lubbock and both cofounders of Ferrum Capital, were convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy in August.
The two are accused of using Ferrum as a Ponzi scheme to defraud hundreds of people out of millions of dollars. Many of their victims are from Lubbock or San Antonio where the case went to trial.
“Mercy denied by defendants to their victims. Mercy denied by the court to defendants,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge Fred Biery.
“The court interprets defendants to be asking for the secular equivalent of biblical acts of grace and mercy. Notwithstanding undisputed evidence of Defendants’ invocation of Jesus of Nazareth and ‘God bless’ in their marketing strategy, there is no evidence of Defendants granting grace and mercy to the victims,” Biery wrote.
Allen requested release until his December 10 sentencing date. Separately, a friend of Cox submitted a letter to the court asking Cox be allowed to spend time with his family before surrendering to federal officials for a prison sentence.
Often white-collar defendants are allowed to go free between a conviction and sentencing. But right after the jury found the two guilty, Biery immediately ordered them locked up.
The judge’s Monday order described Ferrum as robbing Peter to pay Paul – scheming against even their own friends and fellow church members.
“Jesus said when his followers help the least of those among us, ‘you do it unto me.’ Matthew 25:35-40. No doubt he would say when you steal from the least of those among us so also ‘you do it unto me,’ antithetical to the Christian beliefs espoused by defendants,” Biery wrote.
Neither Allen nor Cox is a flight risk, Biery said.
“The only countries they could escape to without extradition treaties with the United States are not places they would want to live and their lives would be in danger,” Biery wrote.
Biery was harsh when applying previous suicides (or suicide attempts) by others to Allen and Cox – calling previous cases “judicial mistakes which thwarted justice.”
Biery wrote in his official judicial ruling, as though it applied to Allen or Cox, “After consuming a bottle of alcohol and a bag of pharmaceuticals, including a large amount of Viagra, the police report of what the housekeeper discovered gives new meaning to the medical term ‘rigor mortis’ and the vernacular ‘stiff.’”
Biery freely conceded Allen was a competent CPA and Cox touched many lives for the better. But he also said, quoting Shakespeare, the evil men do lives on after them while the good they do is often interred with their bones.
“The court has sympathy for codefendants’ families as it does for all spouses and children whose partners and fathers make choices to become federal felons at the expense of others,” Biery wrote.
Prosecutors previously said in a written statement the two men were looking at 70 years maximum. But Biery hinted the time could be even more.
“Here, defendants Allen and Cox are looking not at ten years in prison, but twenty to eighty, most if not all of the rest of their lives.”
Biery compared them to their codefendant, Brooklynn Chandler Willy of San Antonio. Willy pleaded guilty earlier in the year to 10 charges including wire fraud. She too will be sentenced in December. Unlike Allen and Cox, she was allowed to go free until sentencing.
Also, the effort to recover money for victims has located “pennies on the dollar” and with no help from Allen and Cox, the judge said.
“There is no indication defendants Allen and Cox have assisted. Ms. Willy on the other hand has voluntarily deposited $950,000 into the registry of the Court for restitution,” Biery wrote.
Click here to read the judge’s opinion and order.
Previous coverage: Feds argue against letting Allen out of jail, saying he can’t be trusted
