Caramadre petitions U.S. Supreme Court to take up case

April 27--PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Cranston estate planner Joseph A. Caramadre is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review his conviction in a multi-million dollar investment scheme that wagered on the lives of terminally ill people.

Caramadre this month petitioned the high court, asking it to consider whether the guilty pleas he entered to wire fraud and conspiracy violated his rights to due process under the Fifth Amendment. In addition, Caramadre challenges the ruling by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that he waived his right to appeal when he entered those pleas.

Caramadre is being represented by John W. Mitchell, a New York defense lawyer who was part of the team that successfully defended developer Richard P. Baccari Sr. against bribery charges.

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in January declined to reconsider Caramadre's bid to withdraw his guilty pleas to charges that he conspired with an employee to defraud insurance companies. In doing so, the court affirmed an appeals panel ruling upholding U.S. District Court Chief Judge William E. Smith's decision to let stand the former political donor and philanthropist's guilty pleas.

Caramadre now argues that the high court should take up the case because he was denied his rights, "in that he was coerced into having to sign a categorical appeal waiver as part of his plea agreement." As a result, he was "foreclosed from appealing his conviction and sentence on any grounds."

Caramadre contends that when federal prosecutors require that waiver as a condition of entering a plea they are violating the constitutional guarantee "to fundamental fairness and due process."

Federal prosecutors in 2011 accused Caramadre and his employee, Raymour Radhakrishnan, of fraud in a scheme that used identities of dying people to purchase life insurance investments without their knowledge. Investors with Caramadre's Estate Planning Resources firm were then guaranteed a full return or a profit upon the death of the person. Caramadre paid the terminally ill people a few thousand dollars for their signatures on documents.

Caramadre and Radhakrishnan pleaded guilty four days into a trial. Within weeks, Caramadre moved to withdraw his plea, arguing ineffective counsel and mental stress due to his wife's emotional breakdown. Smith rejected those claims. He sentenced him to six years in prison and ordered him to pay $46 million in restitution.

Reader Caramadre's petition to the U.S. Supreme Court:

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