Cantrell guilty
Political operative convicted on all 11 counts
NWI Times
Jun 6, 2008
nwitimes.com/news/local/cantrell-guilty/article_2953ef75-e6e7-5f92-8b1f-9792e3f6ce9d.html
HAMMOND | East Chicago political operative Robert Cantrell was convicted on all 11 of the federal fraud counts in the public corruption indictment against him.
After about five and a half hours of deliberation Friday night, the jury of seven men and five women found Cantrell guilty of illegally taking kickbacks from a public contract, hiding the profits from the Internal Revenue Service, and illegally getting health insurance for his two adult children -- John and Jennifer.
"It is a sad commentary when you think about all the money that was wasted," Prosecutor Orest Szewciw said following the verdict. "Our office has always been dedicated to prosecuting corruption in Lake County."
Szewciw said he was happy to have an "attentive jury" that paid attention to the presentation of complex financial crimes.
Cantrell will face a restitution order to repay the IRS what he didn't pay in taxes and the North Township trustee's office for commission to which he was not entitled, Szewciw said. It isn't clear how much that restitution will be.
"This is a man who can go to lunch with a sitting judge and threaten him," Szewciw said. "This is a man who takes credit for putting judges in power, like Ed Fontanez in East Chicago and Kris Kantar in Lake Station."
Defense attorney Kevin Milner did not comment on the case Friday.
Cantrell was charged with four counts of depriving the public of honest services, three counts of insurance fraud using the U.S. mail and four counts of filing false income tax returns between 2000 and 2003.
The indictment accused him of taking secret cash kickbacks from a contract between his then-employer, the North Township trustee's office, and his political ally, Nancy Fromm. He failed to disclose financial interest in the contract as required by state law.
Cantrell, 66, did not take the stand in his own defense.
Government and defense lawyers delivered impassioned closing arguments Friday morning, each accusing the other of building legal arguments out of conjecture and lies to reach conclusions that defied common sense.
"If I understand the government, Mr. Cantrell controls Lake County. Maybe he controls America," Milner said, using his trademark hyperbole to make the allegations seem absurd.
Several minutes later, Szewciw said of Milner: "He said Miss Fromm lied to you. He said this good agent (IRS Agent Paul Drapac) lied to you.
"That's his defense. That's counsel's defense."
Essentially, prosecutors say Fromm paid Cantrell about $152,000 that he didn't pay taxes on, including commissions for the North Township contract, in addition to getting Fromm to add Cantrell's adult children to her group insurance plan illegally.
The trial comes as a result of at least four years of investigation of Cantrell by the Lake County Public Corruption Task Force. Fromm, the government's star witness, said whole swaths of county leaders were under Cantrell's political influence.
Milner said the government was attacking Cantrell with "technical" charges because of who he was, rather than what he had done: "He's on trial for being a politician. Let's be honest."
The defense attorney said Fromm had ample motive to lie because she's still awaiting sentencing on her own charges. But the government failed to present other witnesses who could have told a different story because prosecutors don't have leverage over them, he said.
"They're not facing prison. They don't have to make a deal with the devil," Milner said. "They can come in and tell the truth, which makes them useless."
In an interview outside the courthouse after he was dismissed from service, alternate juror Larry Blankman, of Crown Point, said extensive testimony on insider deals among Lake County leaders only reinforced negative assumptions about local politics.
"We all have our ideas about politics," Blankman said. "Politics makes strange bedfellows."
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