Psychiatric Evaluation Set for Bleidt; Station Sale Is Off

Brad Bleidt will undergo a psychiatric evaluation to see if he is competent to stand trial, the Associated Press reports. Meanwhile, the prospective buyer of Bleidt’s station has nixed the sale.
A federal judge ordered Bleidt, owner of WBIX(AM) in Massachusetts, to undergo the evaluation after he was arrested last week at a hospital and charged with mail fraud.
He is charged with stealing tens of millions of dollars from his financial clients; he appeared in U.S. District Court wearing a neck brace, AP reported, having attempted suicide after mailing tape-recorded confessions to federal regulators. The news service quotes Bleidt’s attorney as saying his client had spinal surgery to fuse three vertebrae after he broke his neck in the suicide attempt.
The judge said she would wait to receive results of the examination before scheduling a further hearing.
Christopher Egan, the businessman who planned to buy WBIX, dropped out of the deal, AP reported, to clear the way for a court-appointed receiver to recover assets of the investors who were cheated by Bleidt.