FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
WWW.USDOJ.GOV/USAO/MA
CONTACT: CHRISTINA DiIORIO-STERLING
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MAN CONVICTED OF PLOTTING TO MURDER WITNESSES IN FEDERAL CASE
BOSTON, MA - A former Attleboro resident was convicted yesterday in federal court of charges arising from his attempt to hire a hit man to kill 12 expected witnesses in a pending federal criminal case, as well as the federal prosecutor assigned to that case.
Acting United States Attorney Michael Loucks and Warren T. Bamford, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation - Boston Field Division, announced that JAMES BUNCHAN, age 54, formerly of Attleboro, MA, was convicted yesterday by a jury sitting before U.S. District Judge Donald P. Woodlock, of using the U.S. Mail with the intent to commit a murder for hire and of soliciting another to commit a violent federal crime.
Evidence presented during the six day trial proved that in the summer of 2006 BUNCHAN, while an inmate at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility pending trial in a major federal fraud case, asked another inmate to help him find a hit man to kill the people he expected to testify against him at trial. The inmate contacted the FBI, which set up a sting operation in which the inmate tried to introduce BUNCHAN to an undercover agent posing as a hit man. Video and audio recordings showed BUNCHAN carefully reviewing the people he suspected would be the "star witnesses" in his case and deciding in each instance whether to have only the witness killed, or family members as well. BUNCHAN eventually sent a letter to the supposed hit man offering $160,000 in exchange for the murder of 12 people, although the prosecutor assigned to BUNCHAN’s case was never put on the list.
BUNCHAN’s underlying fraud case, in which he was convicted after trial in June 2007, involved a large Ponzi scheme in which BUNCHAN and others defrauded about 400 victims, mostly Cambodian immigrants, of about $30 million. BUNCHAN is presently serving a 35 year term for that offense.
Judge Woodlock has not yet announced a date for sentencing. BUNCHAN faces up to thirty years imprisonment, to be followed by three years of supervised release and a fine.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Andrew Lelling and William Trach of Loucks’ Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force Unit.
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