PIDB funds still frozen in Samoa bank
by Fili Sagapolutele
Samoa Times
30 April 2001

The president of Private International Development Banc (PIDB)
of American Samoa has not made any effort to release the $14
million frozen in Samoa back to the U.S. Government. 

The federal government alleges that the money under Cravens'
name and the names of his co-conspirators frozen in accounts
at the ANZ Bank-Samoa is part of the $74 million bilked out
of more than 2,000 mainland investors. 

Much of the money was siphoned off to various offshore
accounts in Samoa, Costa Rica and elsewhere, according to
court documents. 

Assistant U.S. attorney Carl Blackstone said from Seattle on
Friday that as far as he knows, Cravens "has made no efforts
to release the money from ANZ Bank in Samoa".

Sources in Samoa told Samoa News on Thursday that the money
remains frozen and no request has been filed with the Samoa
Supreme Court to release the money to the U.S. 

The money is be used to pay back investors who were bilked in
the scheme.

Cravens is now scheduled to appear before Judge Rothstein on
May 4th at 10 a.m. for a hearing on the federal government's
appeal of the San Diego Magistrate Judge's order to release
Cravens. 

Cravens was arrested early this month at his home in La Jolla,
just outside of San Diego. Two weeks ago, a Seattle judge had
overturned the San Diego judge's order to release Cravens
and granted a federal motion to keep Cravens in jail until he
is transported to Seattle.

Blackstone said that the federal government will be seeking to
have Cravens detained instead of being released. 

Cravens and four other defendants are each charged with mail
fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy.

Last Thursday, scheme ring leader John W. Zidar, John
Matthews and Steven Moreland pled not guilty to the charges
and their case goes to trial on June 11th. They will
apparently be tried together. 

The fifth defendant in the case, Elizabeth Anne Phillips,
remains at large. 

The Seattle Times described Zidar as the patriarch of a
religious movement which is the center of the investment
scheme. The newspaper also reported that last Thursday's
hearing was "punctuated by a brief and profanity-laced
exchange" between Blackstone and Zidar's attorney Robert
Caruso. 

The Seattle Times said Caruso asked the court to dismiss the
101-count indictment, claiming Zidar was illegally detained
without a preliminary hearing on the charges. 

At one point during Caruso's long motion, Blackstone
interrupted to say that Caruso didn't understand that federal
rules precluded the need for such a hearing when a defendant
has been indicted by a grand jury. 

The presiding judge cut the argument short telling Caruso to
file a written motion. 

As the hearing adjourned, "an angry Blackstone" accused
Caruso, while still inside the courtroom of  "wasting the
court's ... time" and told him to "get up to speed." 

Caruso, fuming over being interrupted, shot back that "this
is bull... " and accused Blackstone of being "financially
illiterate" and not understanding the investment plan Zidar
was operating, said the Seattle Times. 
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