Bixby man declared a flight risk after all
March 10th, 2010 | by admin |
U.S. district judge reverses a magistrate’s ruling that allowed the fugitive to post bail.
A Bixby man who fled to Costa Rica after learning that he was being investigated by the IRS is a flight risk and will not be allowed to post bail in a criminal tax case, a federal judge decided Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge James Payne found a serious risk that David Michael Nigh would flee again if released from custody.
Payne’s decision reversed that of U.S. Magistrate Frank McCarthy, who had set bond conditions for Nigh at the conclusion of a hearing Thursday. The conditions included electronic monitoring, frequent visits with probation officers and strict monitoring of Nigh’s finances.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Leitch appealed McCarthy’s ruling before Nigh could be released from jail.
Leitch told Payne at a hearing Monday that prosecutors were concerned that if Nigh were released, he would return to Costa Rica, where he again would be out of reach of U.S. authorities.
Nigh was charged in Tulsa on April 8, 2008, with five counts of filing false federal returns for the 2001 through 2005 tax years.
Payne’s order says the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Tulsa received a tip in April 2005 that Nigh was running a “bookie” operation. That led to an Internal Revenue Service investigation into his purported bookmaking activities, according to the order.
The judge wrote that a search warrant was served at Nigh’s home in Bixby in May 2006. In December 2006, “Nigh fled the United States for Costa Rica in an attempt to avoid the criminal investigation of which he was the
target,” Payne wrote.
Nigh was arrested last month in Cancun, Mexico, where he was on vacation.
According to testimony Thursday, Nigh divorced his wife and married a Costa Rican citizen while living in that country, had his two juvenile daughters visit him there more than once and had his elderly father live with him there.
Claims have circulated on the Internet that Nigh has been connected to an online sports-betting operation that, according to its Web site, “operates legally in the beautiful country of Costa Rica.” However, nothing was said during either Tulsa hearing about that, and neither the prosecution nor the defense would comment on that topic.
His attorney, Martin Hart, noted that the April 2008 indictment charging Nigh was filed under seal — meaning it wasn’t made public — which Hart said effectively deprived Nigh of the option of voluntarily surrendering to face the charges.
Hart also said his client did not assume a false identity while in Costa Rica and was using his own passport — which has since been surrendered — when he was arrested in Mexico.
Payne pointed out that Nigh told one of his ex-wives that “he could not come back to the United States because of tax reasons and that he might go to jail if he did return.”
Nigh faces up to three years in prison if convicted of the charges, which reportedly involve about $88,000 in unreported income.
Hart said Nigh anticipates pleading guilty to the charges.
