A federal judge declined to take the guilty plea of former hedge fund executive Samuel Israel III to bail jumping on Wednesday after Israel indicated he was being weaned from a powerful prescription painkiller.

Israel, the former chief executive of defunct hedge-fund firm Bayou Management, told US District Judge Kenneth Karas in White Plains that he was being weaned from fentanyl patches with methadone and considered himself only "60 to 70%" at a hearing Wednesday.