FEDERAL COURT Business owner is sentenced

Records show he owes roughly $175,000 indelinquent taxes.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Michael Mike Jr., the owner of Acme Steak Co., has been sentenced to five years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release with the first five months on in-home electronic monitoring, 50 hours' community service for each of those three years and ordered to pay restitution for redeeming at least $117,000 in unlawfully acquired food stamps.
Mike, 49, of Hummingbird Hill Drive, Poland appeared Thursday afternoon in U.S. District Court, Cleveland. In January, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit food stamp trafficking.
At the time, James Lynch, an assistant U.S. attorney, said the sentencing range was 10 to 16 months. The federal prosecutor also expected the court to order restitution.
U.S. District Judge Lesley Brooks Wells sentenced Mike. The date he will surrender for incarceration has not yet been determined.
Mike was represented by Boardman attorney J. Gerald Ingram.
Acme has two locations, at 32 Bissell Ave., Youngstown, and 340 Victoria Road, Austintown. Food stamps were permitted for purchases at the Bissell Avenue store but not at the Victoria Road site, the indictment states.
The case
The government said that between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 1998, Mike and unidentified others acting on his orders accepted U.S. Department of Agriculture food stamp coupons at Acme Steak on Victoria Road.
During 1998, Mike instructed drivers for Acme to accept food stamp coupons as payment for wholesale items sold through third-party retail vendors, the government said. Lynch has said retailers cannot use food stamps to pay for goods.
Of $791,284 worth of food stamps redeemed, at least $117,000 had been unlawfully acquired outside the regulations of the program.
The object of the conspiracy was to make money by receiving, trafficking and redeeming for value through the bank account of Acme Steak, an authorized food stamp program retail participant, food stamps that were obtained outside the regular course of business.
The case was investigated by the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, FBI and U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Bankruptcy
In January 2003, Acme filed for bankruptcy but expressed a desire to continue operating while working out an agreement with creditors, according to Vindicator files.
A check Friday of Mahoning County records shows that Mike owes $128,553 in delinquent taxes on the Victoria Road property, $4,613 in delinquent taxes on the Bissell Avenue property and $8,791 on the Hummingbird Hill house. He also owes more than $30,000 in delinquent taxes on eight other properties, records show.
In 2002, Acme Steak lost more than $200,000 worth of food business with the Trumbull County jail when law enforcement began looking into how the informal contract had been awarded.
In October 2001, Mike reached a $14,092 settlement in Youngstown federal court with Magic Valley Fresh Frozen Inc. of McAllen, Texas. Magic Valley filed a complaint, saying that it shipped perishable foods to Acme and was owed $15,658.
meade@vindy.com