Wednesday, July 15, 2009

CURRIN released, after Helping to Nail David Hagen

July 14, 2009 Thepilot.com

Witness in Hagen Case Released Early

A former federal prosecutor and judge was released from prison early for his cooperation in a federal court case against David A. Hagen, a former Southern Pines resident.

Sam Currin was released Monday by order of U.S. District Judge W. Earl Britt. Currin, a Raleigh lawyer who rose to prominence as an aid to Senator Jesse Helms, had been in federal prison since May 2007. He was not originally scheduled to be released until April 2013.

Currin admitted to laundering $1.3 million for Hagen, who was convicted in federal court in May of three counts of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit mail/wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He has not been sentenced on those charges yet.

Currin served as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina from 1981 until 1987. From 1987 until 1990 he a Superior Court judge and from 1996 until 1999 he served as the state's Republican Party chairman.

Hagen was arrested by FBI agents in October 2007 after he got off a plane from the Bahamas in New York. In an affidavit filed with his arrest warrant, Hagen was accused of using erroneous Web sites purporting to give tips to drive up the stock price of his Southern Pines-based business GTX Global, formerly known as Gatelinx Corp, so that he could sell his stock.

He is also accused of issuing a false press release claiming that GTX merged with another technology company. The affidavit calls it a "classic pump-and-dump" scam.

Hagen is accused of selling the stock at its inflated price and then laundering the money through bank accounts in the Bahamas, the Netherlands and Cyprus and finally the United States.

The affidavit, from FBI Special Agent Douglas P. Curran, mentions a cooperating witness for the prosecution who recorded phone conversations with Hagen in which they discussed the scheme.

Britt referred to Currin's extensive cooperation with federal prosecutors in his decision to release Currin early, according to a story in Tuesday's News & Observer of Raleigh.