Seven-Year Contempt Confinement Ends

After spending seven years in jail for contempt of court, investment adviser Martin Armstrong is free to begin serving a five-year sentence for conspiracy to commit securities, mail and wire fraud.

A federal judge has ruled the jailing for failure to turn over almost $15 million in assets has lost its coercive effect, the New York Law Journal reports. Armstrong says he doesn’t have the assets.

Armstrong pleaded guilty last year to a role in defrauding Japanese investors of more than $700 million, the legal newspaper says.

Here is Wall Street Journal coverage (sub. req.).