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Oil-drilling scam lands would-be
prospector a 21-month federal _prison term.
ALAN ABRAMS
Special to the Jewish News
B
arry D. Yaker, the
Birmingham lawyer who
raised more than $2 mil-
lion from a roster of
prominent investors to drill for oil
under Israel's Dead Sea but spent
most of the money on personal
expenses, was sentenced Nov. 27. He
will serve 21 months in a federal
prison.
Judge Gerald E. Rosen of the U.S.
District Court in Detroit also sen-
tenced the 66-year-old Yaker to two
years of supervised release and will
hold a later hearing to determine the
amount of restitution he must pay
his victims.
Yaker and his attorney, Neil
Fink of Birmingham, told the
court they disputed the
$685,000 figure set by the
government. Federal prosecu-
tor Ross MacKenzie said that
total represents non-legitimate
expenses to which Yaker
diverted funds paid by
investors in Independent Oil
Partners, Ltd., the partnership
Yaker established to drill for oil.
Under federal sentencing guidelines,
if the court had accepted a lower fig-
ure, Yaker could have received an
18-month sentence, making him eli-
gible to serve part of his term in a
halfway house.
Yaker must surrender himself to a
federal marshal 60 days after sen-
tencing. Rosen recommended Yaker
serve his time at a low-security facili-
ty, such as the former Elgin Air
Force Base in Illinois.
Yaker, formerly of Huntington
Woods, and whose law practice was
in Birmingham, pleaded guilty in
August to one count of mail fraud in
the amount of $108,000. Several of
Yaker's victims were angered by what
they called the leniency of that plea
agreement. Victims of the scam
included prominent members of
Detroit's Jewish community.
In pronouncing sentence, Rosen
said that at some point, what had
begun for Yaker as "a project of pas-
sion, became a crime of passion."
Rosen said Yaker's love of Israel
became obscured as he diverted for
personal use the money he raised for
the drilling of the oil well.
"I did commit a crime. I did use
some of their money for personal
expenses," Yaker told the court in his
pre-sentencing bid for leniency.
Rabbi David Nelson of
Congregation Beth Shalom, whose
congregation includes both Yaker
and Rosen, also asked the court for
leniency in sentencing Yaker, who
could have received a five-year
prison term. Bradford Yaker, one of
Yaker's four sons, spoke on behalf of
the family, many of whom were in
the courtroom.
Judge Rosen said "project
of passion became crime
),
of passion.
But the court also heard a com-
pelling plea from one of the victims.
The testimony of Martin J. Frank of
Beverly Hills, Calif. — who invested
$72,000 in the project — was
broadcast to the courtroom by
speakerphone.
Martin L. Abel, a West Bloomfield
businessman who, with his family,
invested $72,000 and subsequently
spent $196,000 of his own money to
help bring charges against Yaker, filed
several hundred pages of documenta-
tion with the court last month. He
briefly addressed the court to state
that his submission spoke for him.
Rosen said in his 11 years on the
bench, he had never seen anyone not
connected with the official prosecu-
tion of a case put as much time into
one as Abel had done.
Noah Fishman, a Midland, Texas,
oil geologist victimized by Yaker, also
deferred to his written submission.
Defense attorney Fink refused to
comment on the sentencing. LT'
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