"...company repaid investors ..."

Does any reporter ask "WHICH" INVESTORS were "REPAID"?



NATIONAL CENTURY CASE
Ex-CEO?s boating request opposed
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Barnet D . Wolf
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH



Federal prosecutors say money that should have belonged to investors in the defunct National Century Financial Enterprises was transferred to an account in the Bahamas.

The information was disclosed by the government in documents opposing a request by the company?s former CEO, Lance K. Poulsen, to be allowed to travel in a 20-foot fishing boat.

Poulsen was one of seven former National Century Financial Enterprises executives charged in May with engineering a $3 billion fraud at the Dublin based company.

All seven have pleaded not guilty. A trial date was set last week for Sept. 3, 2007.

No hearing date has been set on Poulsen?s request.

National Century provided financing for troubled hospitals, clinics and other health-care providers, buying their accounts receivables at a discount with money raised from investors.

The company repaid investors when it collected the receivables. However, National Century collapsed in late 2002 after investors became concerned about the company?s accounting practices.

Poulsen, who now lives in Port Charlotte, Fla., was released after he posed a $1 billion bond, agreed to give up his passport and was prevented from using his 60-foot, ocean-going yacht.

The former executive last week asked the court to change the terms of his release so that he could use the smaller boat to fish in coastal waters, but the government objected.

The response filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Dale Williams said money that should have gone to National Century investors was sent offshore.

Funds "illicitly" taken from the company?s bond programs were transferred from and through financial institutions in the United States and Europe "before being transferred to an account of an undisclosed entity in Nassau, Bahamas," Williams wrote.

Neither Poulsen nor his attorney, Thomas Tyack, could be reached for comment.

The government opposed Poulsen?s request, saying that even though the smaller boat is not considered suitable for ocean travel, the craft is capable of making such a trip.

Williams also took note of Poulsen?s skill in operating marine navigational systems, and said that a properly equipped 20-foot inboard/outboard boat could go from Florida to the Bahamas, where a U.S. citizen doesn?t need a passport.


bwolf@dispatch.com?