Sentencing for fraud reset

Staff report

CLEVELAND

The sentencing for David Harriett, formerly of Howland and convicted in federal court of mail fraud for operating a $7 million Ponzi scheme, has been reset until 1 p.m. Sept. 28 so he can receive cancer treatment.

The hearing had been set for Wednesday afternoon.

Prosecutors say Harriett, 60, a former General Motors Lordstown executive, defrauded about 200 investors from August 1996 until January of this year.

Many of the investors were local acquaintances of Harriett’s whom he knew from General Motors, the U.S. attorney’s office in Cleveland said.

Harriett knew the investor money wasn’t being put to any legitimate use but instead went to make Ponzi payments to other investors, to operate the company and for his own use, prosecutors said.

About 10 investors sued Harriett in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, and about 15 sued in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

In a filing received by U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. O’Malley, Harriett requested a 30-day delay in sentencing because a doctor at the Cleveland Clinic recently recommended that Harriett undergo a regimen of radiation treatment for cancer lesions found on his hip, right shoulder, and middle of the back by the spine.

Harriett, who has metastatic cancer — cancer that has spread from one area to other parts of the body — was scheduled to receive the treatments Aug. 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 and possibly for two additional weeks after that, the filing says.