H/t Allah. We all know the saga of Norman Hsu. Well, after having been rearrested in Colorado, prosecutors asked that a $50 million bail be set. After all, Orange County is ready to file additional charges, apparently for another Ponzi scheme totaling $33 million. What bail does the judge set?

“Two million wasn’t enough to keep Mr. Hsu from running. We’ll see if $5 million will do it.”

Good idea. The man was willing to just abandon $2 million just the last arrest alone. He also abandoned bail in 1991. Let’s see if he’s willing to do the same with $5 million this time. Guess what. Turns out that Hsu has $6 million in his checking account. Note: Not savings account, checking account.

Captain Ed asks:

Who keeps $6 million in a checking account? FDIC/FSLIC only insures to $100,000, which leaves 98.3% of those unprotected in case of a bank failure, but that’s not the real eyebrow raiser. Who needs to be that liquid? Who has to have that much money accessible through a checking account and, one presumes, a debit card?

So let’s do some simple math, Judge Bruce Raaum. $6 million in liquid minus $5 million dollars bail. If Hsu abandons the bail, in order to avoid years in prison, he’d still be left with $1 million just in his checking account. Captain Ed notes:

Judge Bruce R. Raaum told Hsu’s attorney that “Two million wasn’t enough to keep him from absconding.” Given the amount of money to which he had access — including $40 million from Woodstock founder Joel Rosenman — $5 million won’t give him that much difficulty either.

So let’s take this all into perspective. We’re going to see if a man that’s jumped huge bails twice before, facing years in prison, is willing to abandon a slightly larger bail, when he most likely has access to tens of millions of dollars. Brilliant!