There are actually a lot of ways in which Adam Hochfelder, the real-estate developer who was arrested yesterday on charges of bilking banks, family, and friends out of over $17 million, is a sympathetic character. He's a precocious Long Island whiz kid, the son of a garment manufacturer, who started out too young, played too high-stakes a game, and thus found himself, inevitably, in way over his head. He's a father of two who once told a reporter, "I'm addicted to my kids."

But it was not that addiction that Hochfelder's lawyer chose to evoke at his bail hearing yesterday. Rather, he tugged on the judge's heartstrings with another, more stirring image:

"He's completely blown out his nose," Hochfelder's lawyer Paul Goldberger told Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Daniel FitzGerald.

Bail was set at $1 million. Way to set the tone, guy. No one's going to think about how he snorted away millions of dollars of people's money now.

Broker Blows It [NYP]
Earlier: Real Estate Star Awkwardly Arrested