Ponderosa promoter is headed for prison

The former concert promoter was sentenced to 30 months in a penitentiary.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Judge R. Scott Krichbaum gave Jeffrey Best two months to start repaying victims he'd defrauded while working as a concert promoter at Ponderosa Park.
The judge promised Best in March that if he made an attempt to pay back $13,000, he'd place the Salem-area man on probation instead of sending him to prison when his sentencing date rolled around.
But when Best showed up for sentencing Friday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, he hadn't paid back a dime. So instead of probation, Best will do time.
Judge Krichbaum sentenced Best, 32, to six months in prison for passing bad checks and misuse of a credit card, and for each of three counts of theft. He ordered the terms to be served consecutively, for a total of 30 months.
Best, who was visibly nervous and shaken throughout the hearing, leaned against a podium to steady himself as the sentences were pronounced.
The judge said he couldn't understand why Best made no attempt to at least begin restitution and avoid prison.
"Maybe you couldn't have come up with all of it, but you sure as hell could have come up with at least some of it by now," the judge said. "I don't understand you."
Defendant's explanation
Best said he was living in Houston, Texas, and working as a concert promoter when he met owners of Ponderosa Park at a concert in Nashville, Tenn. He said they asked him to work for them, promoting concerts at the resort and entertainment complex in southern Mahoning County.
He said park owners assured him they would provide $150,000 to $200,000 for country music acts to perform at the park.
However, after he'd already scheduled and presented two shows, he was told there was no money available for entertainment, Best said.
But by then, he'd already written checks and ordered merchandise for the park, including some furniture for a house in which managers and staff of the entertainers were put up.
"I thought, 'My god, what have I done?'" Best said of when he realized what had happened. "I don't make that kind of money to pay that back."
Buyers never got tickets
Assistant prosecutor Nicholas Modarelli said that when people used credit cards to buy concert tickets, Best instead used the money to cover other debts. The customers never got their tickets and never got their money back.
Best said that since he pleaded guilty in March, he's been busy caring for his terminally ill father. He said that's why he couldn't get a job and begin making restitution.
Defense attorney Lawrence Stacey II said Best would get a job and start whittling away at the debt if the judge would give him probation.
"You're trying to swindle me now, just the same as you swindled those people," Judge Krichbaum told Best. "I would be an absolute fool to trust you to go out and make this right."
bjackson@vindy.com