Judge denies Cain’s bid for early prison release
Gary Cain, who was convicted with former state Sen. Carlos Uresti three years ago for defrauding investors, won’t be getting out of prison any time soon.
Cain last month asked a judge to grant him a “compassionate release” from prison because his declining health makes him particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus.
Senior U.S. District Judge David A. Ezra denied the request Monday, noting that prosecutors provided evidence that Cain tested positive for COVID-19 in July and refused the Pfizer-biontech vaccine when offered it in December.
Cain’s “violation of the law suggests that early release would not reflect the seriousness of the offense, promote respect for the law, provide just punishment, afford adequate deterrence of future criminal conduct, or protect the public from further crimes,” Ezra wrote in his order Monday.
Cain, 64, is serving a 68-month sentence in a low-security correctional institution in Seagoville. He’s about at the midway point of the sentence and is scheduled to be released in August 2023.
In 2018, Cain and Uresti and
were convicted by a jury for their roles in Fourwinds Logistics, an oil field services company that lured investors with promises that there were riches to be made in the buying and selling of sand used in fracking for oil production. Prosecutors called it a Ponzi scheme.
Cain, a Fourwinds consultant, was found guilty of nine felonies, including money-laundering and wire-fraud charges.
Uresti, 57, a San Antonio Democrat whose more than 20-year political career was upended by the scandal, is serving a 12-year sentence at a facility in western Louisiana and is slated to be released in
2029. He was convicted of 11 felonies.
Both men also have to pay $6.3 million in restitution to Fourwinds’ victims.
“Cain did not create the … scheme, but he was given a generous contract to find additional investors to keep the scheme going, and actually participated in the fraud by continuing to encourage investors to keep their money in the fraud and continuing to cash checks” from the company, Ezra said in his ruling. Cain received $30,000 a month from Fourwinds.
Even though it appeared Cain knew by the end of 2014 that Fourwinds was misusing investor funds, he persuaded some investors to keep their money in the company, Ezra added. Investors lost more than $8 million collectively.
Cain also hid assets and filed a fraudulent tax return, the judge said.
In his request for an early release, Cain said he was suffering from a bad heart, obesity, hypertension and rheumatoid arthritis. But he did not suffer any severe complications after contracting COVID-19, Ezra said.
Cain’s medical conditions are “controlled thanks to the medical care he is receiving” in prison, the judge said, citing prosecutors’ case against an early release.
Randy Pulman, a lawyer for Cain, declined to comment.