PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- A fugitive from a New Jersey prison who later ran a Boston investment firm that swindled $35 million from clients was arraigned Thursday in Providence District Court.
Alan H. Abrahams was charged with being a fugitive of justice from New Jersey and was remanded to state prison without bail, State Police Lt. Richard Wheeler said. He entered no plea.
Judge Michael Higgins set a hearing on possible extradition for next week.
State Police Det. Lt. Thomas Moffatt said Abrahams, a flamboyant businessman known as James A. Carr when he ran the Boston firm in the mid-1970s, was arrested Wednesday. He had been at large six months.
State police had worked for a week to locate an auto leasing firm Abraham was running in Providence under the name of James Carr, the same name he had used in the Boston case.
Moffatt said state police would request Abrahams be held without bail pending an extradition decision.
Abrahams is wanted as both a fugitive from Massachusetts and New Jersey.
The New Jersey courts want him for escaping from the Taunton State Farm on Dec. 4, 1974, where he served only 44 days of a 4-to-6-year term for passing phony checks and misrepresenting himself when applying for bank loans.
The Massachusetts courts want him for failing to show up for a Nov. 14, 1983, hearing on whether he should be returned to New Jersey.
Abrahams also was convicted in federal court for a business he opened in Boston after his escape from New Jersey. Abrahams opened Lloyd, Carr and Co., which became one of the country's largest commodities-options trading firms with 12 offices, 1,000 brokers and gross sales of $2 million a month.
But officials said 97 percent of the 4,000 investors in Abrahams' company lost their money, and brought a 50-count fraud indictment against him.
He pleaded guilty to seven charges and was sentenced in June 1980 to seven years in prison by a federal judge who called him 'ruthless.' On Jan. 28, 1983, he was paroled for good conduct after serving less than three years at the U.S. Correctional Institution at Ray Brook, N.Y.,
As a parolee, he was arrested in May 1983 as a fugitive from New Jersey but opened three new businesses during a Massachusetts court fight to prevent New Jersey authorities from getting him back.
He apparently left Massachusetts last November when faced with the possibility of being sent back to New Jersey to finish his term.
