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Lawyer urges house arrest for Harriett
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The Howland man at the center of a $7 million Ponzi scheme David J. Harriett
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
CLEVELAND
The lawyer for a man who pleaded guilty to mail fraud in a scheme that defrauded more than 200 people of some $9.3 million is urging the federal judge who will sentence him today to put him on house arrest and not send him to prison.
Atty. Timothy F. Sweeney of Cleveland made the request on behalf of David J. Harriett, 61, who will be sentenced at 1 p.m. by U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. O’Malley.
Sweeney made the request in a sentencing memorandum, saying house arrest would allow Harriett to continue being treated for terminal cancer at the Cleveland Clinic and to receive hospice care when he needs it.
Harriett’s oncologist, Dr. Robert Pelley, has been subpoenaed to testify at today’s sentencing hearing concerning Harriett’s diagnosis and prognosis.
If the judge declines to put Harriett under house arrest, Sweeney is asking her to request that the U.S. Bureau of Prisons place him in a low-security unit at the Federal Correctional Center at Butner, N.C., which is near large hospitals at Duke University and the University of North Carolina.
A decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam War, Harriett retired in 2006 as day-shift-operations manager at General Motors in Lordstown, the memorandum says. Harriett, formerly of Howland, now resides in Medina.
In 1996, he founded D.J. Harriett Inc., a Ponzi scheme in which he misrepresented to potential investors that he had contracts to develop and build McDonald’s franchises, the memorandum says. “He is ashamed of his behavior and is remorseful for his criminal acts,” Sweeney wrote.
Court records do not indicate the filing of any sentencing memorandum by Bridget M. Brennan, the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case. Brennan did not respond to a request to comment for this story.
Judge O’Malley has allowed the defense to file under seal with the court 527 pages of confidential medical records concerning Harriett.