Section: NEWS
Bearden, extradited last week from Japan, wore an orange jail suit for his brief appearance in U.S. District Court Tuesday.
A hearing had been set on the government's request that Bearden, 42, be held without bond pending trial. His lawyer, Scott Rosenblum, waived the hearing Tuesday, meaning that Bearden will remain jailed for now. Rosenblum may seek bail for Bearden later.
Bearden left St. Louis last fall, telling associates he would soon return to run his rare instruments shop in Shrewsbury. Instead, he remained in Tokyo, where police arrested him on June 13. Unknown to Bearden, a federal grand jury here had indicted him April 10 on 14 charges of wire and mail fraud.
He is accused of swindling more than 21 people in the St. Louis area, across the country and in Canada. Some of the victims are musicians with the St. Louis Symphony who have known Bearden since the 1980s, when he operated a small shop next to the Symphony and painstakingly made violin bows by hand.
Authorities said that Bearden took thousands of dollars from his victims for instruments, even though he never intended to make the instruments or return their money.
