Former student's release delayed

U.S. attorneys will not appeal a federal judge's decision to grant bail to former Wharton student and convicted drug trafficker Alexander Moskovits pending a new trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristin Hayes said yesterday. But processing the required paper work will likely delay Moskovits' release until Thursday, his lawyer, Scott Srebnick, said yesterday. New York civil rights attorney William Kunstler, who is also representing Moskovits, said Friday he hoped his client would be released today. In a bail hearing on Friday, U.S. District Judge Louis Pollack ordered Moskovits, who has spent the last six years in prison, to be released on a $300,000 bond. Moskovits will travel to Miami where he will be placed under house arrest in his mother's condominium. He will wear an electronic monitoring anklet and report in person to the federal court in Miami seven days a week. His passport will be taken away and his phone calls will be monitored, as well. At the bail hearing, Srebnick, who drafted the conditions upon which Moskovits is to be released, said these requirements were some of the most restrictive he could imagine. The government resisted Moskovits' release under any conditions, believing he represented a danger to the community and might flee the country. Moskovits was convicted in 1988 on 18 federal drug counts for trafficking 50 kilograms of cocaine, at least 10 of which were allegedly funneled through the University. But the former student won a new trial from Pollack this summer after proving his original trial lawyer, Robert Simone, had failed to provide him effective counsel. Simone, who has since been convicted of extortion in an unrelated case, advised Moskovits not to take the stand in his own defense under the mistaken belief that a prior Mexican conviction would be used against him. But Pollack ruled that the Mexican conviction was not admissible because Moskovits had not been represented by a lawyer during key portions of that trial. Srebnick did not know whether federal officials would allow Moskovits to be released from the federal courthouse in Philadelphia or if he would be put on a plane by U.S. marshals. He also said it is possible marshals will travel to Miami with Moskovits when he is ultimately released.