MARK KIESLING: Cantrell shows no sign of rehabilitation
NWI Times
Mar 7, 2010
nwitimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/mark-kiesling/mark-kiesling-cantrell-shows-no-sign-of-rehabilitation/article_5ab4aa24-9211-5c58-9cf1-5d32a3546129.html
Ideally, prison is meant to rehabilitate an offender for release into society. Failing that, its purpose is to punish an offender for a crime of which he or she has been convicted.
If that's true, prison is not working so well in the case of Bob Cantrell.
Oh, it's working all right for him. It's just not working that all right for us, the residents of the region who were betrayed by his political shenanigans, in which he steered clients to an addiction rehab program. The program, in turn, paid him a finder's fee, although finding the clients was about as hard as finding a rhinoceros in a phone booth.
If you missed Times sports columnist Al Hamnik's fine exclusive interview with Cantrell, try to find a Friday paper either online, at the library or in your recycling bin. It's well worth the read and leaves one with the distinct impression Cantrell is being neither rehabilitated nor punished.
Cantrell was convicted of defrauding taxpayers in North Township, where he worked, by steering drug and alcohol offenders to Addiction and Family Counseling, run by Nancy Fromm, who testified she paid Cantrell a fee for each client he could turn up.
"I don't feel I was guilty. They put me in here because a woman said she gave me some money," Cantrell told Hamnik. "Other than that, I'm not embarrassed. I know deep down in my heart it's not true."
Well, OK, a federal jury and judge felt otherwise. But that's what an appeals court is for.
Asked how tough life is in the low-security Federal Correctional Center in Ashland, Ky., he said it is "more like what I would call a retirement home" than a prison. But he said he is not planning on retiring from Lake County politics.
"I'm not going to run away from (politics)," he said. "That's what may have got me here, but I've got a lot of friends out there."
One of his closest political students has been County Coroner Tom Philpot, who once gave credit to Cantrell for getting Philpot elected county clerk. Cantrell said he feels he will be "missed" in the race for sheriff, in which Philpot is a contender.
OK, just to be sure I've got it straight, convicted federal felon Bob Cantrell says his input will be missed in the election of the county's top law enforcement officer. Do you want a convicted felon helping elect your top cop? Apparently Cantrell thinks you do.
"Tell them I'll be back," he said. "My health is good. I'm going to be out of here one of these days. I feel I can walk around with my head (high). It's not a heinous crime. My crime was more of income tax evasion, which I think the judge went a little overboard giving me 78 months."
Maybe. A lot of people who have done a lot worse things than Cantrell have served less time, that's for sure.
But my guess, and I can't prove this, is that Cantrell still has his hand in Lake County politics from federal prison, and he's directing traffic from afar. His opinion from decades in the trenches still is valued, and like he said, he still has friends.
After all, it's the Lake County way.
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