Two members of Congress Jim Jordan (R-OH), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and James Comer (R-KY) chair of the House Oversight Committee, issued letters to U.S. Attorney Damian Williams of the Southern District of New York and BOP Director Colette Peters seeking information on whether or not there was interference with Galanis’ ability to get home confinement. The interference, the member of Congree believe, relates to information Galanis has on his former business partner Hunter Biden. Those letters received no response and now subpoenas for additional documentation were sent Friday to both the BOP and Southern District of New York.
Galanis is serving a 189-month prison sentence which was imposed by United States District Judge P. Kevin Castel in the Southern District of New York. He pled guilty on Jan. 31, 2020 for participation in the Gerova and Tribal Bond Schemes. Prosecutors said Galanis was part of a scheme that persuaded an entity affiliated with South Dakota's Oglala Sioux Nation to issue bonds. Galanis and others were accused of fraudulently inducing pension funds to invest in the bonds through an investment adviser firm they controlled. At the time of sentencing, Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said Galanis orchestrated two multimillion-dollar fraud schemes and “He and his codefendants engaged in market manipulation and the defrauding of shareholders, and they stole a large portion of the proceeds of tribal bonds that were intended to fund economic development projects,” a 2020 DOJ release said.
Galanis admits to his crimes, stating in a February 2024 interview, “... I accepted that I committed these crimes, and I deserved a lengthy sentence for my conduct, even offering from the time of my plea to provide prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York with any information that would assist in the thorough disclosure of the fraudulent conduct of all parties. The offer was rejected,” accordion to a transcript of Galanis’ interview. This struck Galanis and his attorneys as odd since there was information that they believed could not only implicate others, but could also possibly lead to a reduction in sentence for Galanis if the information led to indictments.
Galanis was interviewed by a delegation from Congress on his interactions with Hunter Biden at the federal prison camp at Maxwell AFB, Montgomery, Alabama, on Feb. 23, 2024. Galanis started his deposition with, “I was a business partner of Hunter Biden and Devon Archer, among others, during the years of 2012 to 2015. Our business included the acquisition of an 85-year-old Wall Street firm, Burnham and Company, the $1.5 billion surviving division of Drexel, Burnham, Lambert, and, combining that with other businesses in insurance and wealth management we owned and acquired, with total audited assets, over $17 billion. Our objective was to build a diversified private equity platform, which would be anchored by a globally known Wall Street brand together with a globally known political name. Our goal, that is, Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, and myself, was to make billions, not millions.”
The CARES Act allowed the BOP to place some inmates, mostly minimum-security inmates with underlying health conditions, on home confinement in an effort to curb contagion during the Covid-19 pandemic. The CARES Act policy ended almost a year ago.
Galanis was approved by the Pensacola warden and his staff and referred to California, his home, for placement. On June 9, 2023, the BOP California staff members confirmed their approval of Galanis’ home confinement in an email to FPC Pensacola. Then on June 12, 2023, the Committee on Oversight and Accountability announced that they were issuing a subpoena to Galanis’s co-conspirator Devon Archer relating to its inquiry into President Joe Biden's business dealings. The following day after the committee announced it would subpoena Archer, Galanis’ home confinement approval was reversed. Galanis and his attorney, Mark Paoletta, understood from a former high-ranking BOP official that the SDNY prosecutors aggressively interacted with the BOP staff to oppose his release. Galanis and Paoletta believe that the home confinement was denied as a result of this intervention, and now Jordan / Comer want more information. Galanis has appealed the decision with the BOP but he states that the BOP has provided inconsistent reasoning for the denial.
Prosecutors across the country began to weigh in on home confinement during COVID-19. Despite the success of the program where nearly all of those granted home confinement completed their sentences without incident, many prosecutors believed such an action essentially reduced the prison term, something that did not sit well with them. However, the BOP has always maintained that while prosecutors may have provided their position on CARES Act home confinement, it was the BOP that had the final say.
In their letter to US Attorney Williams, Jordan / Comer state, “the Committees have received additional information that strongly suggests the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) has been retaliating against Mr. Galanis for his cooperation with the Committees’ inquiry.” The subpoenas will shine a light on whether or not that occurred.
A response to the subpoenas is due by May 17, 2024.
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Article originally published on Forbes.com by Walter Pavlo (April 26, 2024)
