Keep $1.3 million thief Scott Adair locked up, prosecutor urges
YOUNGSTOWN
An assistant county prosecutor is opposing the early release from prison of a man who stole $1.3 million from a trucking company he co-founded.
Kenneth J. Cardinal filed his motion Friday in opposition to judicial release for Scott Adair, 53, who pleaded guilty to embezzling from Southwind Transportation Inc. and was sentenced to four years in prison in August 2011.
Judge Lou A. D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, who imposed the sentence, has not yet ruled on Adair’s motion for judicial release or scheduled a hearing on the matter.
Adair’s criminal acts caused the bankruptcy and financial collapse of the company and unemployment for its workers, Cardinal said, adding that a company co-owner is paying $3,000 per month to a bankruptcy trustee for guaranteed loans he and Adair co-signed.
Cardinal also said Adair “plundered a company to satisfy his personal greed,” and that the company’s collapse was a “disaster to local vendors who lost tens of thousands of dollars in the bankruptcy caused by the pure greed of the defendant.”
Adair, who is at the Marion Correctional Institution, pleaded guilty to aggravated grand theft, tampering with records, complicity to theft and two counts each of telecommunications fraud and money-laundering.
Adair’s motion says his release would allow him to give guidance to his daughters, age 19 and 21, with his older daughter set to graduate from Youngstown State University this spring.
His release also would allow him to care for his mother-in-law and his elderly parents, who are in declining health, the motion says.
The motion says Adair is a “model prisoner” with no prior criminal record, who works in the prison farm’s dairy barn.
“Defendant’s loss of society with his family pales in comparison to the loss suffered in this community, both economically and emotionally,” Cardinal wrote.
“The state feels sorry for the cows,” Cardinal concluded.