Canadian wants to recant guilty plea

Nathan Jacobson seeks to review bail deal regarding money laundering charges

Nathan Jacobson, a friend of top Canadian politicians, will appear in a San Diego courtroom on Friday to seek to withdraw his guilty plea for money laundering.

Until last summer, Jacobson moved easily in Canada’s highest political circles. He was friends with senior cabinet ministers John Baird and Jason Kenney, and was once photographed with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Jacobson, who got rich doing business in the former Soviet Union, claimed to have introduced Kenney to Netanyahu, and to know Harper well. Andrew MacDougall, the prime minister’s director of communications, says “as far as we can tell” the two men met only once, when they were photographed together.

Through spokespeople, Baird, Kenney and Harper have all said they were unaware of Jacobson’s legal difficulties until Postmedia reported on them last summer.

On May 7, 2008, Jacobson pleaded guilty in San Diego to money laundering in connection with an Internet pharmacy that sold drugs to people without prescriptions. The judge sealed the plea while Jacobson helped investigators.

On July 30, 2012, though, Jacobson failed to show up in San Diego as agreed for sentencing, and American authorities sought his extradition. Toronto police arrested him on Oct. 25, 2012, at his Toronto condo. He spent a week at the Toronto West Detention Centre before he was released on bail, and he ultimately agreed to return to U.S. justice, being escorted in handcuffs through Pearson Airport on July 24.

Since then, Jacobson has been at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in San Diego.

On Friday, Jacobson will appear before Judge William McCurine to review a $1.4-million bail agreement that could see him released.

McCurine has tentatively agreed to release Jacobson and ordered him to remain in San Diego County and submit to electronic monitoring. The U.S Justice Department opposed his release, assistant U.S. attorney Phillip L.B. Halpern said in an email on Wednesday.

Jacobson will also appear before Judge Janis Sammartino on Friday to file a motion to withdraw his guilty plea.