Lake County pol faces 11 counts in fraud, false tax returns case
Journal Gazette, The (Fort Wayne, IN)
March 23, 2007
A Lake County political insider has been indicted on 11 felony charges including fraud and tax evasion.
A 20-page indictment alleges Robert Cantrell illegally earned profits from a North Township contract he helped engineer while working for the township and then convinced that contractor to fraudulently add two non-employees to its health insurance plan.
"He owed a duty of honest service to the citizens of North Township," said Deputy U.S. Attorney David Capp. "Part of that duty includes no self-dealing on contracts."
Cantrell was expected to turn himself in Monday. He is charged with four counts of honest services fraud, three counts of insurance fraud and four counts of filing false tax returns.
Cantrell and Addiction and Family Care owner Nancy Fromm have been targeted by U.S. Attorney Joseph Van Bokkelen's Operation Restore Public Integrity probe for years.
Fromm, a friend of Cantrell's, last week pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and tax evasion charges and has agreed to cooperate with investigators.
"This is stuff they have been talking about forever, and it is based entirely on the word of Nancy Fromm, who is cooperating with the government and trying to get herself out of trouble at Bobby Cantrell's expense," said Cantrell's attorney, Kevin Milner.
Cantrell, 65, of Schererville, is in Italy on vacation and could not be reached for comment.
The fraud counts were committed through the mail and involved a total of $150,000 in unreported income and diverted insurance benefits between 2000 and 2004, the U.S. attorney alleges.
Cantrell has been involved in Lake County politics since the 1960s, when he became the on-again, off-again chairman of the East Chicago Republican Party.
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