Jury to weigh Cantrell case
Testimony near end in fraud case linked to political insider
Post-Tribune (IN)
June 6, 2008
Prosecutors Thursday closed their case against Lake County political insider Robert Cantrell.
With defense attorney Kevin Milner promising an "extremely" brief list of witnesses when court resumes at noon today, jurors should begin deliberations on the 11 fraud counts against Cantrell this afternoon.
They will weigh little more than five days of testimony entered in the case, which opened last week and was extended two days when Judge Rudy Lozano granted a recess so Cantrell could attend the funeral of his 96-year-old mother, who died Sunday.
Trial testimony
Continuing a lengthy list of political figures who have either testified or been mentioned in the case, prosecutors questioned former Schererville town judge Deb Riga and North Township Trustee Frank Mrvan Jr.
Prosecutors did not call former trustee Greg Cvitkovich, who hired Cantrell in 2000 and allegedly signed several lucrative contracts with the Cantrell-connected counseling firm Addiction & Family Care.
Asked if Cvitkovich, who pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges and served five months in prison in 2006, would testify for the defense, Milner declined comment.
Prosecutors closed out their case with three hours of testimony from IRS agent Paul Drapac outlining AFC's finances and all-egedly unreported cash payouts made to Cantrell, and fraudulent paychecks and insurance coverage the company provided to Cantrell's son, John, and daughter, Jennifer, while the pair were in law school.
The allegations
Prosecutors allege Cantrell failed to report nearly $200,000 in income from AFC from 2000 to 2004, much of it in undocumented cash payments Cantrell took directly from a file cabinet where Fromm stored payments from court defendants.
Drapac estimated AFC had enough cash on hand to cover the $72,000 or so Cantrell allegedly pocketed, as well as thousands AFC owner Nancy Fromm kept for herself.
"It was primarily a cash business," Drapac said.
On cross examination, Milner noted that Fromm admitted to hiding and destroying records, and the government had no accurate estimate as to how much cash AFC ever had on hand.
Drapac, Milner said, was relying on estimates of how much Cantrell had pocketed in off-the-books transactions, based on assumptions of how much Cantrell was due under his reported 50-50 split arrangement with Fromm and how much of the company's estimated revenue never turned up in bank accounts or tax records.
"What I want you to tell me is how you can attribute cash to Mr. Cantrell when you can't even tell me how much cash was taken in?" Milner asked.
More details emerge
In other testimony, Riga said Cantrell had arranged for her to send business to AFC, and that Cantrell had wanted to pay her father in cash for work he did for AFC as a consultant.
When Milner asked Riga if it seemed strange to her that Cantrell would discuss fraudulent business arrangements with her father, whom he had met only a few times, she replied, "it wasn't anything ominous, like (they) were hiding something.
"It was very candid, like that was just the way it was done."
Mrvan, who succeeded Cvitkovich as trustee, said Cvitkovich cautioned him about crossing Cantrell and Fromm after Mrvan, then a township board member, had railed against the AFC contract at a public meeting. When Mrvan announced he would run for trustee in 2005, he said Cantrell suggested that Mrvan might hire AFC to work with poor relief clients instead of employees.
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