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Moosally pleads guilty in loan deal for ReadyAir
By Ed Runyan
CLEVELAND
Former Trumbull County businessman Robert T. Moosally Sr., who defaulted on a $200,000 loan from Trumbull County officials in 2005 after making only one payment, has pleaded guilty to falsifying loan documents related to a $400,000 federally backed loan.
Moosally, 64, of Chagrin Falls pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court to a bill of information charging him with filing false statements in a 2005 loan application to Sky Bank, which is now Huntington Bank.
Moosally lived in New Castle, Pa., when he ran ReadyAir, according to Vindicator files. In 2010, a civil suit that was filed in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court against Moosally listing his address as being on Patricia Drive in Girard.
Moosally’s attorneys said Thursday Moosally now runs a weatherization company that operates mostly in Pennsylvania.
Judge Patricia A. Gaughan set Moosally’s sentencing hearing for 11:30 a.m. May 31, after federal officials conduct an investigation of Moosally’s background and criminal history.
Moosally’s crime falls in a sentencing range of two to three years in prison. He could get more or less time for having previous convictions or for cooperating with investigators.
The U.S. Small Business Administration backed the Sky Bank loan, providing the bank with a guarantee that up to 75 percent of the bank’s investment was protected by the government, according to Vindicator files.
On Feb. 14, Steven M. Dettelbach, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, filed an information in federal court saying Moosally gave a “false and fraudulent financial statement” to the bank between June 28, 2005, and Oct. 25, 2005, to support his application for the $400,000 loan.
Moosally stated in the application that ReadyAir’s revenues were higher than they really were, Dettelbach said. Moosally also reported inflated business-equipment costs to secure inflated bank disbursements, Dettelbach said.
Moosally was president of ReadyAir, a fuel handler and service provider at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport in September 2005 when the Trumbull County commissioners approved lending ReadyAir $200,000 to expand the business.
ReadyAir made only one payment before defaulting and then filed for bankruptcy early in 2006. The county did not recover any of its $200,000 investment, which came from federal Community Development Block Grant funds.
The airport also lost money because of ReadyAir’s failure to pay rents and fees.
A Vindicator investigation in March 2006 showed county officials rejected Moosally’s request for loan money four times between early 2004, when ReadyAir first moved onto the airport grounds, and March 2005.
But by the summer of 2005, Moosally had made his loan application stronger in a variety of ways.
One of the ways was that he had secured the Key Bank loan, which meant Trumbull County now was providing less than half of the total investment money, one of the county’s requirements.
Another was that on April 27, 2005, Moosally wrote a letter to the county saying Anthony Cafaro, at that time president of the Cafaro Co. of Youngstown, had become a 1 percent ReadyAir stockholder.
Cafaro said he knew nothing about ReadyAir but invested money in it as a favor to Moosally, who was a friend from their days at Youngstown’s Ursuline High School.
Moosally also had to write a letter to Trumbull County officials in May 2005 to explain his 1997 federal conviction for bank fraud.
Moosally spent 29 months in prison for defrauding the former Union Savings and Trust Co. of Warren out of $1.2 million in 1985 by overstating the future income of his construction and development firm.