This image was lost some time after publication.

One person you do not want to be right now is disgraced hedge funder Samuel Israel III. Because if you were him you'd either be a) lifelessly floating along the banks of the Hudson River; or b) the subject of one of the most high-profile manhunts in white-collar criminal history. Or both! Israel, the Bayou Group hedge fund founder who was found guilty of conning investors out of millions of dollars, was scheduled to begin serving a 20-year prison sentence on Monday; just an hour before he was scheduled to show, his car was found on the Bear Mountain Bridge with the words "Suicide is Painless" drawn in dust on its hood. But no body has turned up. And it turns out that people tend not to believe you when you spend your entire career defrauding people.

Instead of going through the ordeal of committing suicide or elaborately faking his death, Israel would have been well-advised to call former Comverse Technology CEO and convicted felon Jacob "Kobi" Alexander. He'd have recommended Israel catch the next Air Namibia flight.

If you've been been reading the Wall Street Journal religiously, you might remember that Alexander was indicted on charges of backdating stock options two years ago, but he and his family fled to Namibia instead, which has no formal extradition treaty with the U.S. His new homeland seems to be treating them well: the Alexanders have one of the fanciest places in town (and it only cost $500,000—try finding a pool house in Connecticut for that kind of money), and bribery payments to government officials don't cost much more than, say, annual dues at Greenwich's Temple Sholom.

In fact, Kobi just threw a blowout Bar Mitzvah for his son, the best the country's ever seen, although that might be because it was pretty much the only one its ever seen. Over 200 guests were flown in from New York and Israel, the Israeli hip-hop artist Subliminal was performed, and the extravaganza went on for four full days.

Hedge fund fraudster disappears on way to prison [USA Today]
A Bar Mitzvah in Namibia: Checking in on Kobi Alexander [WSJ Law Blog]