It’s not every day an alleged Wall Street scammer begs for a court date with Preet Bharara.
But that’s exactly what Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, the star of the 2001 documentary “Startup.com,” is doing after he got a little taste of life inside a Bogota, Colombia, jail.
Tuzman, indicted on charges of market manipulation and accounting fraud in September by a grand jury impaneled by Manhattan US Attorney Bharara, got roughed up a bit in the Bogota jail after he was arrested by police in that South American country.
Tuzman is sharing a 90-square-foot jail cell with two other inmates — an alleged drug trafficker and an alleged murderer — awaiting extradition to the US.
‘Mr. Isaza Tuzman is presently being held in a facility where he faces imminent bodily harm from other inmates.’
- Tuzman's lawyer Jonathan New
But life inside that jail hasn’t been easy, according to court papers.
Tuzman’s lawyers claim he is facing “life-threatening conditions” at the La Picota detention facility and have asked the US to help speed his exit from the jail — before it’s too late.
“We are pleading for Mr. Isaza Tuzman’s life and the most basic of human rights guaranteed to US citizens,” his lawyers Reed Brodsky and Avi Weitzman wrote to a Manhattan federal judge earlier this month.
In the letter, the lawyers quote the 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes’ “Leviathan” and describe the Colombian jail as having “subhuman conditions.
“As we explained, Mr. Isaza Tuzman is presently being held in a facility where he faces imminent bodily harm from other inmates,” Jonathan New, one of Tuzman’s lawyers, wrote to Assistant US Attorney Damian Williams on Sept. 18, according to the letter, which was partially redacted.
Those narcos are targeting him because he’s a big-shot Wall Street CEO, according to the letter.
Tuzman’s legal team wants Bharara to drop all charges against him so he can quickly exit the jail — and then re-indict him once he is outside La Picota.
Tuzman will then surrender to US authorities, his lawyers claim. The US, calling Tuzman’s plan “unprecedented,” has denied the request.
Prosecutors paint Tuzman as a spoiled white-collar criminal who’s a flight risk.
The alleged felon has “tweeted that he was ‘personally’ excited that Emirates airlines had launched a new direct flight route from Latin America to the UAE,” a country that won’t extradite to the US, according to the prosecutor’s letter to the judge.
Lawyers for Tuzman, 44, and Bharara are scheduled to argue the issue before Judge Paul G. Gardephe on Friday.
Tuzman, founder and CEO of the video services company KIT Digital, was accused alongside his CFO of inflating the value of KIT.