06052008 - Cantrell's trial now focusing on daughter's court - CANTRELL --Attorneys say father never profited from her courtroom - ROBERT CANTRELL

Cantrell's trial now focusing on daughter's court
CANTRELL --Attorneys say father never profited from her courtroom
NWI Times
Jun 5, 2008
nwitimes.com/news/local/cantrell-s-trial-now-focusing-on-daughter-s-court/article_085e0efa-4611-5efe-be15-f51fbb92563f.html
HAMMOND | When Nancy Fromm and colleague George Safana started an addiction counseling service in 1997, Lake Superior Judge Julie Cantrell was one of the first to send a few court-ordered rehabilitation clients to the firm.

And when Fromm's firm was hurting for business two years later, Fromm recruited the help of Judge Cantrell's father, Robert Cantrell, in squeezing even more clients out of her court, Fromm testified.

But it could not have been known then that Robert Cantrell, an East Chicago political operative, would eventually be criminally charged in Hammond federal court for allegedly profiting from the very kinds of deals he helped set up in his daughter's court.

A federal fraud trial for Robert Cantrell resumes today following a two-day break in testimony.

"Robert Cantrell never took one dime from any case that went through that court," defense attorney Kevin Milner said last week during Robert Cantrell's fraud trial. "Even though that was most of the money, he never took one dime of it."

Between 2000 and 2003, Julie Cantrell's court sent more than $588,000 worth of business to Fromm's firm, Addiction and Family Care Inc.

It was almost half of the $1.3 million in profits that Cantrell is alleged to have helped Fromm's business earn between June 1999 and late 2005. All told, 75 percent of Fromm's business in those years came from contracts secured by Robert Cantrell.

Robert Cantrell has admitted using his political influence to generate the contracts and then taking as much as 50 percent of the profits as a consulting fee, arguing it was a legal arrangement.

"The evidence will show there was complete transparency in all these transactions," Milner said in the trial's opening statements last week.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Orest Szewciw agreed with Milner that Robert Cantrell did not get paid for any of the work referred from Julie Cantrell's court.

But that doesn't mean he didn't use it to his advantage, Szewciw said. Rather, the business from Cantrell's court comprised part of the leverage that Robert Cantrell held over Fromm, Szewciw said.

"This was business that was brought in by him, and it could be stopped by him," Szewciw told jurors in opening statements.

Julie Cantrell could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Milner said last week the judge is likely to be called as a witness in the case.

Julie Cantrell's magistrate, Michael Pagano, declined to comment on the trial Wednesday because it is a pending case.

Fromm told Milner during cross-examination that Julie Cantrell always had asked her father to make sure he was not profiting personally from the business from her court.

"He said from the very beginning he did not want to hurt his daughter, and he loved his family," Fromm testified. "He did not want to tarnish her court in any way."