Opinion
No. 06 CR 160.
December 14, 2006
MEMORANDUM ORDER
During the most recent (December 12) status hearing in this matter, Assistant United States Attorney Brian Hayes delivered to this Court a copy of the just-unsealed Criminal Complaint in Case No. 06 CR 923, in which Adrian Florin Fechete ("Fechete," the sole defendant named in this indictment) is the first-named among 21 alleged participants in a major fraud scheme. This Court has now had an opportunity to review some aspects of the Complaint, and the allegations there raise a question that should be addressed in this case.
Accordingly to Complaint ¶ 3, the victims of the alleged scheme "suffered losses totally in excess of $5,000,000 between approximately November 2003 and August 2006."
Accordingly to Complaint ¶ 17, Fechete's alleged involvement in the claimed fraudulent scheme included the recruitment of Gary Michael Schneider and Jessie Vega to participate in the scheme. That paragraph goes on to assert:
The cellular telephone recovered by law enforcement at the time of FECHETE's arrest contained telephone numbers for SCHNEIDER and VEGA.
Complaint ¶¶ 18 and 19 then go on to provide more particulars as to the latter two alleged co-schemers.
In this action Fechete has regularly been provided with the services of a Romanian interpreter at government expense. But at least from the allegations of the Complaint, it would appear that if Fechete was able to converse with Schneider and Vega that would almost certainly have been in the English language without the intervention of an interpreter — and if so, there may be no real reason to provide Fechete with interpreter services (with the concomitant expense) in this case.
Accordingly Fechete's counsel is ordered to be prepared to speak to the issue identified here at the next status hearing, now scheduled for 1:15 p.m. December 28, 2006. It is also expected that AUSA Hayes will be prepared to speak to the issue as well, based on information that he may have obtained from the federal agents involved in this case and in the alleged fraudulent scheme that is the subject matter of the newly-unsealed Criminal Complaint.