12092009 - News Article - Cantrell's appeal calls for new sentence - ROBERT CANTRELL

Cantrell's appeal calls for new sentence
NWI Times
Dec 9, 2009
nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/cantrell-s-appeal-calls-for-new-sentence/article_fbb2fd0d-91bd-501f-8885-9e79f5c18209.html
In an appeal that casts jailed Lake County political fixer Robert Cantrell as a charitable, patriotic "Indiana legend and hero," Cantrell's lawyer asks Chicago-based federal appeals judges to toss out Cantrell's 6 1/2-year prison sentence.

Lawyer Bryan Truitt argues in a sentencing appeal filed Tuesday at the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals that Hammond federal Senior Judge Rudy Lozano unfairly applied the statutory guidelines in deciding Cantrell's punishment. Truitt also claims Lozano failed to address arguments based on the 67-year-old Cantrell's "heroic" Bronze Star-winning military career and relatively old age when he was convicted.

"There has to be some reward in living a good life and helping others and not being selfish," Truitt said Tuesday.

"I am appalled that, with all the violent crime that's around, this man, who's nonviolent and who has lived this life and has this character, is behind bars."

The key section of Cantrell's appeal kicks off with a brief celebratory history of Cantrell's athletic career. Cantrell led the former East Chicago Washington basketball team to an Indiana state championship before he was captain of the University of Michigan basketball team that made the NCAA Final Four in 1964. The brief notes Cantrell's 32 years of teaching and administration in East Chicago schools and his Gulf War combat service in the U.S. Army Reserves. Truitt portrays Cantrell as the self-sacrificing benefactor to East Chicago teens who might not have escaped poverty and violence without Cantrell's mentorship.

"Take away this conviction; he is a legend," Truitt said.

Cantrell always has denied he committed any crime in benefiting from a contract between his then-employer, the North Township trustee's office, and his political ally-turned-prosecution witness, Nancy Fromm. Jurors disagreed in June 2008, finding him guilty of illegally taking kickbacks from a public contract, hiding the profits from the federal government and illegally arranging township-funded health insurance for two of his adult children. Prosecutors portrayed Cantrell at trial as a greedy, skilled political operator who stepped on political connections to enrich himself. Lozano castigated Cantrell at sentencing, claiming the politico used his talents to fleece taxpayers.

Truitt's brief focuses on the 6 1/2-year sentence rather than the convictions. An appeal to the convictions is impending, Truitt said.

On the sentence, Truitt argues first that Cantrell's guideline range -- a span tailored to a federal defendant under congressional sentencing laws -- was developed under the wrong sentencing law. Cantrell's "offense conduct" means he should have been sentenced under a statute that would have called for a lighter sentence, Truitt wrote. Truitt notes that Lozano handed an 11-year prison bid to Michael Orsburn, former trustee of Jasper County's Keener Township, and the Seventh Circuit rejected that sentence based on sentencing guideline laws. Lozano resentenced Orsburn in April to 4 1/4 years in prison. Orsburn stole $310,000. Cantrell's conviction involved $68,000.

Truitt also argues Lozano did not address the "far from frivolous" arguments that Cantrell's military record and age called for leniency. Truitt invokes a court decision that laid out the "tradition of respect for the citizen-soldier going back to the War of Independence" and "the far more ancient tradition of the noble Romans."

Neither acting U.S. Attorney David Capp nor Assistant U.S. Attorney Orest Szewciw, who prosecuted Cantrell, could be reached for comment Tuesday.

Cantrell remains jailed at a federal prison on Kentucky's border with West Virginia.

"It's my understanding that his wife goes down there almost every weekend, and his children take turns going down there," Truitt said.

Cantrell's appeal also mentions honest-services fraud. The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday heard oral arguments on whether such honest-services laws are constitutional. Two cases before the nation's high court call into question such laws, one an appeal brought by Bruce Weyhrauch, a former Alaska legislator, and the second by former newspaper magnate Conrad Black, who is in jail for scheming to take $5.5 million as personal fees while he was CEO of Hollinger Inc., which owned the Chicago Sun-Times.