The former chief of Sovereign Bancorp has a tentative deal to invest $30 million in Federal Trust Corp and take control of the small Florida-based savings and loan. Federal Trust Bank operates 11 full-service offices and had total assets of $639.8 million as of June 30.

About two decades ago, Sidhu started down a similar path, when he took over as chief executive of Sovereign. By the time he left had transformed a $400 million Pennsylvania thrift into a regional bank with some $89 billion in assets and 800 branches, stretching from Maryland to Boston. Under Sindhu, Sovereign acquired more than two dozen banks and branch networks divested by bigger banks.

But Sidhu, who stepped down from the bank in 2006, was also a magnet for criticism. Disgruntled investors complained about Sovereign’s stagnant share price, and his agreement to sell a minority stake to Spain’s Santander and simultaneously buy Brooklyn, New York’s Independence Community Bank Corp.

Critics also decried Sovereign’s corporate governance, accusing Sidhu of controlling his board by granting directors exorbitant pay and lucrative inside deals.

The New Delhi native has apparently been planning a comeback. He controls Sidhu Advisors, an investment vehicle. And in March, he filed with regulators for an IPO of Sidhu Special Purpose Capital Corp, blank-check company, to raise up to $150 million.

If past is prologue, he’ll use Federal Trust as a platform for acquiring more banks. And along the way, he’ll no doubt attract some pointed criticism.

(Photo credit: Federal Trust logo from PR Newswire)

“It’s different, that’s for sure,” said Ken Cudworth, 37, as he moved his family into a site at the campground. Cudworth had been waiting for an opening at the wooded camp for a few days and got a call on Wednesday morning that one had opened up – the site that Israel, who was convicted of a scheme that defrauded investors of $450 million, vacated when he turned himself in at a local police station.

“I’ll be digging some holes to see if he left anything,” Cudworth said.

Jim Cooley, 63, also staying at the camp, said he’d seen a man who matched Israel’s description pull out of the site on a motorscooter. That was the vehicle Israel rode to Southwick police station where he turned himself in after a four-week nationwide manhunt for the person who committed the longest-running fraud in the $2 trillion hedge-fund industry.

None of the campground visitors interviewed had talked with Israel during his stay or realized who he was prior to news of his surrender. But Cooley had a theory as to why Israel turned himself in.

“I think he got bored here and said, ‘Heck, they’re never going to find me here. I’m going to turn myself in,’” Cooley said.

As he rode out Prospect Mountain camp ground for the last time, Israel would have passed the children’s play area, where among the climbing toys is a pen with a sign that reads “Campground Jail.”

(Photos by Brian Snyder)

But it appears to be the getaway vehicle of choice for fugitive former hedge fund manager Samuel Israel III.

And unlike the larger than life returns Israel promised investors, the vehicle is big. Really big.

“Everything about the Coachmen Freelander Class C motorhome shouts out ‘big’, more storage, big tanks, large doors, tall ceilings, and big beds,” the company said in a press release.

The U.S. Marshals Service, which tracks fugitives, issued a release describing the nearly 30 ft, white Freelander. It has a blue 2005 Yamaha scooter attached to the back, possible damage to the rear passenger side, a New York license plate (EEN-5973) and sporty swoosh stripes — the kind that convey family fun.

And where would he go in such a vehicle?

RV Parks? Camp grounds? Highway rest stops, perhaps? Yes to all three places, say the Marshals.

Working in his favor is the time of year. It’s summer. And on U.S. highways that means one thing: it’s RV time.

Nearly 8 million U.S. households own at least one RV, according to the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association, and summer is the time when many are dusted off and hit the road — even as gas prices soar.

So RV campers beware. The balding 48-year-old man parked nearby could be the engineer of the $2 trillion hedge fund industry’s biggest and most brazen fraud.

Where do you think the co-founder of the Bayou Group is? We welcome your thoughts.

Your middle-class parents have a combined household income of $115,000. You receive an allowance of $20 per week. If you save all your allowance for two years, how much debt will you have to finance to hostilely take over your family? How will you structure the debt?

That's not so true in New York, where there's less competition on the fund side but lots of promising media and finance businesses, he told the Reuters Hedge Fund and Private Equity Summit on Tuesday.

New York is also looking like increasingly fertile ground relative to Boston's once booming Route 128 corridor. Lenihan, who admits that as a New Yorker he may carry a certain bias, said that shuttle flights which once were packed with New York investors going to Boston to check out companies are now carrying many more Boston investors in the opposite direction.

"If you look at the deal flow and you look at the amount of companies that are being built, I think there's been a noticeable slowdown in technology innovation in the Route 128 corridor," he said.