[ad_1]
At 2:30 pm on Tuesday, 41-year-old Nicolas De-Meyer was due in Manhattan federal court to plead guilty to stealing $ 1.2 million in wine while employed as a personal assistant to the CEO-in-waiting of Goldman Sachs.
He was instead in room 3307 at the Carlyle Hotel, speaking on the phone to his sister.
"I can not go to jail," he told her, according to a police official.
The sister immediately called the police to say he might take his life, but by then De-Meyer had a window on his room on the 33rd floor. He landed on the terrace to room 1515.
The police responded at 2:38 pm to Sabrina Shroff, who was arrested while trying to defend himself in the custody of Paul Gardephen's courtroom. The reason why De-Meyer has not been privy to the judge's chambers. They left without comment.
In De Meyer's way to New York from Findlay, Ohio, where he had been living with family while the case progressed. He had been declared indigent, officially too broke up into a guilty pledge to include seven bottles of Romanee-Conti's domain, or DRC, for which Goldman Sachs co-chairman David Solomon had paid $ 133,450.
"Among the best, most expensive, rarest wines in the world," the prosecution had noted in short documents.
De-Meyer's stealing might have gone away and he might have been pilfering lesser vintages had he been able to resist the seven exceedingly pricey bottles. He sold them to a dealer called Wine Liquidators, which then put them up for sale.
"So in October of 2016 in Napa Valley wine bottle of seven rare wines from the world of rare wines." Domaine de la Romanée-Conti wine through Wine Liquidators, the drug dealer who defended the victim's wine, "a prosecutor said during a hearing.
"The Napa Valley dealer was able to be determined, based on the label, because the wine is so rare, and it was possible that it was able to stolen. He contacted the victim's wine broker, and he confirmed that they were, in fact, stolen. "
The victim being Solomon, whose wine cellar is in an Easthampton home. He contacted the authorities and went to the residence.
De-Meyer was there, he had his duties at the time of acceptance of rare wines to Solomon's Manhattan apartment and transported them to be stored in Easthampton. De-Meyer gives credit to the wine cellar.
"At that time the detective made some sort of offhand comment on how easy it was to get to know this crime because they had to go back to where the wine came from," . "Well, that must have really caused [De-Meyer] to panic. "
The next day, Nov. 8, De-Mayer called Solomon's wife, Mary Solomon.
"He was very upset and said he needed to talk to her," a prosecutor later reported.
The Solomons at the Greenwich Hotel in Lower Manhattan.
"There, the defendant confessed to stealing from the victim of the seven bottles of wine," the prosecutor would recount. "He said that he had sold the wine to a wine dealer called Wine Liquidators which he found online."
De-Meyer pledged to make financial restitution.
"The parties agreed that they would meet the next morning," the prosecutor said.
But De-Meyer never showed.
"The story of the film is about to take place at the Greenwich Hotel at about 9:15 pm on the night with the victim and his wife," the prosecutor later reported. "An hour and a half later his phone is pinging off cell towers at JFK."
"He did not want to go to jail. And he confirmed that it was a call to the victim's wife a few days later."
The prosecutor continued, "According to his Amex records, the defendant uses American, he was on an Alitalia flight from JFK to Rome that night, November 8, the night of the meeting, scheduled to depart at 10:25 pm Express to buy the ticket that day for $ 5,300.
The prosecutor added, "Cost was not a concern. Getting out of the country was a concern. "
When he was supposed to be meeting with the Solomon, De-Meyer was withdrawing money from ATM machine at Rome airport.
"He did not want to go to jail," the prosecutor would later say. "And he confirmed that it was a call to the victim's wife a few days later."
On Nov. 17, De-Mayer telephoned Mary Solomon "who had the presence of mind to put it on speakerphone and video record it," the prosecutor would say.
"During that call, he, again, confessed to stealing the seven bottles of wine. He said he was scared he was going to be arrested. "
The prosecutor continued, "He added that he could not promise that he would not be prosecuted or go to prison and that the FBI was involved. He said he was scared, and he could not go to prison. "
The prosecutor said that De-Meyer's records "a significant amount of money."
The Prosecutor noted, "From November of 2016 to January of 2017, he's in Rome and Capri. In January of 2017, Casablanca, Marrakesh. January and February of 2017, Rome. February and March, Rio and Ipanema. March and April, Buenos Aires, back to Rio. April to September, Rome, Marrakesh, Capri, Italy, bouncing back and forth. A Brazilian visa, Marrakesh in October, travel to Zurich, travel to Rome. "
"He said he was scared, and he could not go to prison."
In the meantime, there had been an inventory of Solomon's wine collection.
"It was discovered that the stealing and selling the victim's wine," said the prosecutor, "He'd stolen over 500 bottles of wine worth more than $ 1.2 million."
After 14 months, we Jan. 16 of this year, De-Meyer returned to the United States via Los Angeles. He was arrested at the airport.
"Why he came back I do not know," said the prosecutor. "Maybe he thought the government gave up looking for him."
The prosecution requested that De-Meyer be remanded to a "serious risk defendant will flee."
He remained in custody and his views could not have been improved in Los Angeles to one in Oklahoma and finally to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.
At a lease hearing on Feb. 27, De-Meyer's attorney, Shroff, who works for the federal defenders office in Manhattan, told the judge that her client had called her mother in Ohio before returning to America and asking her to seek legal counsel. out his situation.
Shroff also told the judge that De-Meyer had been unable to find a job in the world where he traveled and finally flown to L.A. with the hope that he would be able to find employment.
"He had a job interview set up in L.A.?" The judge asked. "I do not think I heard that before."
De-Meyer spoke up from the defense table.
"No, no interview," he told the judge. "I just had a connection through my ex-boyfriend."
The Prosecutor's Office De-Meyer's members of the family "to finance his flight." Shroff replied that De-Meyer 's mother, Jane Rettig, had just felt it when he was running.
"There's nothing nefarious about buying money from a Kroger's in Findlay, Ohio," Shroff noted.
De-Meyer's mother and sister had flown in for the lease hearing. The mother agreed to put up her house and whatever cash she had for lease. De-Meyer was released on $ 1 million personal bond, secured by $ 200,000 cash and his mother's home.
Over the months that followed, De-Meyer resided with his family in Findlay, flying in for periodic hearings. The last such arrangement was made for the hearing where he was to plead guilty. The judge's latest order read:
On the finding of indigence and the interests of justice, it is hereby ORDERED that the United States Marshals Service furnish Nicolas De Meyer with funds to cover the cost of travel between Findlay, Ohio and New York, New York for Mr. De Meyer's upcoming court appearance on Tuesday, October 9, 2018 at 2:30 pm … and it is hereby further ORDERED that the aforesaid expenses will be paid by the United States Marshals Service. "
Upon arriving in New York, the indigent Mr. De-Meyer checked into the pricey Carlyle Hotel. The hour when he was at home in Europe was one of the first things he knew about Europe and South America.
But he now had no place to go. The moment approached when he would be declared a leaseholder and his mother.
And he jumped.
Source link
