Fugitive fundraiser Hsu captured in ColoradoSeptember 7, 2007
by Jaxon Van Derbeken & John Cote
Fugitive political fundraiser Norman Hsu, who skipped out on San Mateo County authorities this week rather than face sentencing for a 1992 fraud conviction, was apprehended Thursday night by federal and local lawmen in Grand Junction, Colo.
Authorities said Hsu was taken into custody at St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction at 7 p.m. local time. He had been on the lam for almost two days after failing to appear in a Redwood City courtroom Wednesday to surrender his passport.
Hsu was taken off a passenger train at the Grand Junction train station earlier in the day by paramedics who requested a backboard to move him, said Sgt. Lonnie Chavez with the Grand Junction Police Department.
Authorities received a request for medical assistance at the train station at about 11:15 a.m., but the exact nature of Hsu's condition was unclear, Chavez said.
Hsu was traveling on an Amtrak train when he became ill, and Amtrak personnel called an ambulance when the train stopped in Grand Junction, said Pete Smarr, a nursing supervisor at St. Mary?s Hospital. Hsu was listed in fair condition early Friday, but Smarr declined to comment on the nature of Hsu's illness or a timetable for his release from the hospital.
Hsu was arrested in Colorado on federal charges of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution after the California attorney general's office sought assistance from federal authorities in apprehending him, FBI spokesman Joseph Schadler said. The federal charges will be dropped once Hsu is returned to California to face sentencing in state court, Schadler said.
Hsu's attorney told state prosecutors that Hsu had been on a charter flight that arrived at Oakland International Airport at about 5:30 a.m. Wednesday and then dropped out of sight, said Gareth Lacy, a spokesman for the state attorney general's office.
Amtrak's California Zephyr train offers service from nearby Emeryville to Grand Junction before heading to Denver and Chicago. The Zephyr left Emeryville at about 7:10 a.m. Wednesday and was scheduled to arrive in Grand Junction before noon Thursday.
Hsu's disappearing act seemed to be a reprise of a move he pulled 15 years ago, when he failed to show up for sentencing in the same grand theft case. Hsu was facing up to three years in state prison, a $10,000 fine and restitution payments after pleading no contest to a single count of grand theft in what prosecutors described as a $1 million fraud scheme.
But while free on bail after his plea, Hsu dropped from sight for 15 years, apparently spending time in Hong Kong, the Philippines and Taiwan, only to emerge in recent years as a seemingly wealthy New York resident who donated generously to Democratic political campaigns, regularly attended fundraisers and was photographed with party leaders.
A week ago, Hsu, 56, surrendered to San Mateo County sheriff's deputies in Redwood City after press accounts linked him to the earlier grand theft case. He spent a few hours in county jail before posting $2 million bail and agreeing to surrender his passport.
The state attorney general's office, which is prosecuting the case, initially sought bail of $1 million, but San Mateo Superior Court Judge James Ellis doubled that to $2 million - the amount specified in the arrest warrant.
After Hsu posted bail, his attorney, Jim Brosnahan, sent a legal assistant to Hsu's New York condominium Monday to retrieve the passport but was unable to find it after a 90-minute search.
Before Hsu was captured Thursday night, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell became the latest Democratic figure to distance himself from the fundraiser, announcing earlier in the day that he would donate to charity almost $40,000 Hsu contributed to his campaign.
"Though Norman is my friend, and remains so, his failure to appear casts a new light on his assertions regarding the original case," Rendell said in a prepared statement. "As a result, I will follow other elected officials and donate the money he contributed to me to charity."
Hsu,
listed as a "Hillraiser" committed to bringing in $100,000 or more to the presidential campaign of New York
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, has given an estimated $600,000 of his own money to candidates ranging from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Assemblywoman Fiona Ma to presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. Hsu has helped raise hundreds of thousands more through high-profile events in New York and California and served on the board of trustees of New York City's New School university at the request of Bob Kerrey, the university's president and former Democratic senator from Nebraska.
The size and scope of Hsu's contributions made him one of the party's largest individual contributors. While
he gave $23,000 to Clinton and $7,000 to Obama, he also gave $62,000 to New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, $50,000 to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, and $50,000 to the New York State Democratic Party.
His contributions also included $38,000 to the Tennessee Democratic Party, $750 to Newsom, $1,250 to San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, and $3,500 to the 25th Ward Democratic Organization in Chicago.
In the 1991-92 grand theft case, Hsu was
charged with bilking about 20 investors, including his ex-girlfriend, out of about $1 million in connection with a business that was supposed to provide latex gloves to another firm - only no gloves were ever bought or sold, prosecutors said.
"What Mr. Hsu was in the business of was
running a Ponzi scheme," prosecutor Ron Smetana said at a preliminary hearing, according to the transcript. "He was taking money and spending part of it on himself and returning it as it was available. As with any Ponzi scheme, the first ones in and the first ones out always do quite well. Those (who) hope that their investment will continue and stay to the end tend to lose their shorts."
After the glove business collapsed in April 1990, Hsu was kidnapped four months later in San Francisco by a Chinatown gang leader in an effort to collect a debt from him, police said. The abduction was foiled after the car they were riding in ran a red light in Foster City and was pulled over by police, who rescued Hsu, authorities said.
E-mail the writers at jvanderbeken@sfchronicle.com and jcote@sfchronicle.com.
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