Harriett reports to federal prison in NC
By Ed Runyan
HOWLAND
David Harriett, the former Howland Township resident and former GM Lordstown executive convicted of operating a $9.3 million Ponzi scheme, has reported to federal prison in Butner, N.C.
Harriett, 61, who most recently lived in Medina and who has terminal cancer, reported to the Federal Medical Center, which is part of the Butner Federal Correctional Complex.
Officials at the prison did not return phone calls Thursday, his reporting date, asking for information about Harriett’s arrival, but the federal prison website said Friday he is there. His release date is Jan. 3, 2016.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. O’Malley sentenced Harriett to serve five years and eight months in federal prison for swindling more than 200 people out of a total of $9.3 million.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons ordered that Harriett be assigned to the facility at Butner.
Harriett asked to be placed at Butner because it is near major medical centers at Duke University and the University of North Carolina.
Harriett, who retired from GM in 2006, pleaded guilty to mail fraud last year. He lured investors by misrepresenting to them that he had contracts to build McDonald’s and Pioneer Chicken franchise restaurants, prosecutors said.
Harriett’s home in Howland was on Springbrook Drive in the Spring Run condominiums off North River Road. He maintained offices on Seville Drive in Canfield. The Better Business Bureau of Columbiana, Mahoning and Trumbull County, says D.J. Harriett Inc. began doing business in 1998.
At Harriett’s sentencing hearing, Judge O’Malley said an aggravating factor in Harriett’s crime is that Harriett used his position as a General Motors Lordstown executive to recruit investors to become Ponzi-scheme victims.
Also at the sentencing, Dr. Robert Pelley, a Cleveland Clinic cancer specialist treating Harriett, testified that Harriett likely would die within the next two years.