Former banker questions county loan

A prosecutor asked the owner of the company to explain his felony conviction.
By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- A former member of a Trumbull County loan committee, who also is a retired Warren banker, questions why a lump sum of $200,000 was loaned to ReadyAir.
County commissioners approved that loan in September 2005. ReadyAir, however, has failed to make four of its five payments to the county's Revolving Loan Fund since making its first payment in November 2005.
ReadyAir, owned by Robert Moosally, provides fuel handling and other services at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport. The loan was for improvements at its facilities there.
Why, wonders Bill Watson, former president of Trumbull Savings and Loan before he retired in 1991, couldn't that $200,000 loan have worked more like a construction loan?
Watson was on the loan committee during many of the ReadyAir loan talks but was no longer a member when the loan was finally recommended by the committee last August.
"If you are in the banking business, you wouldn't give them any of the money until the improvements were made," Watson said. In that scenario, the company would get the loan amounts as construction was completed in stages, he said.
Response
"That's an all-right idea," said Alan Knapp, Trumbull County Planning Commission director, who participated in the loan discussions. Knapp said Watson's suggestion has not been used by the county in the past. That staged approach might be difficult for a government to monitor, he said.
Knapp said this week that the county had still received only the one payment in November. Each one is a little less than $2,000, he said. A ReadyAir spokesman said a couple of weeks ago that a check for two payments was being prepared.
Past conviction
Moosally has been under financial scrutiny before.
The New Castle, Pa., resident was convicted in federal court in 1985 of bilking nearly $1.3 million from the former Union Savings and Trust Co. in Warren. He was convicted on two counts of making false statements and one of interstate transportation of a forged check. He was sentenced to three years in federal prison.
Moosally said his criminal conviction in 1985 shouldn't have any bearing on the current loan. He said he made full disclosure of his convictions to the port authority when he was granted permission to bring ReadyAir to the airport and did likewise when he applied for the county loan.
"I don't try to hide that," Moosally said, adding that he doesn't think the convictions should be an issue.
Panel's discussion of loan
The county's loan fund committee discussed ReadyAir's loan at three meetings in 2004 and one in March 2005, but the committee said the company's proposal didn't meet requirements and was not approved.
At those meetings were Knapp and members Ed Beil and Watson. County Commissioner James Tsagaris, also a committee member then, attended two meetings.
Moosally made officials aware of his background in March 2005, checking "yes" in a box asking whether the applicant had been convicted of a felony.
That prompted a letter to the planning commission from James J. Misocky, assistant prosecutor, on May 3, 2005. Misocky said that as part of the application process, Moosally needed to explain the felony conviction.
"Therefore, the application is currently incomplete and is not currently eligible for consideration," Misocky said. Knapp said Moosally provided the explanation.
In August 2005, ReadyAir applied again -- this time providing the required information and indicating the company had been approved for a $400,000 loan through Sky Bank and the Small Business Administration, according to meeting minutes. Moosally also provided a personal guarantee of repayment.
Recommended loan
By August, both Beil and Watson were gone from the committee because of a reorganization. The new committee voted 5-0 to recommend the loan to commissioners. The members are Lewis Kostoff, John Mahan, Richard Musick, Mike Robinson and Bill Cummings.
Knapp was asked by the committee in August whether he felt the loan should be approved. "I said it meets our thresholds," Knapp said, not elaborating.
Tsagaris said Tuesday he was aware of Moosally's convictions when he voted for the loan Sept. 1. "I don't see it as an issue at all. As long as he pays that loan off, that's all I care," Tsagaris said.
Commissioner Dan Polivka said he was "not fully aware" of Moosally's felonies when he voted for the loan. He said he advised Knapp to "go slow and sure" with the loan.
Commissioner Paul Heltzel could not be reached.
In the 1980s case, the FBI charged that Moosally had overstated the future income of his construction and development firm, J.B.C. Investment Co., in obtaining or extending loans from Union Savings for $750,000 and $525,000, according to Vindicator files.
He pledged as collateral for the loans accounts receivable from various contracts from cities in Ohio and Pennsylvania when no such accounts existed.
Warrants for Moosally's arrest were issued in January and April of 1983 when he lived in Boardman, but FBI agents had been unable to locate him until a customs official at the Zurich, Switzerland, airport discovered he was wanted by U.S. officials.
runyan@vindy.com