Federal complaint filed against Canfield man

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

A Canfield man who once was a Youngstown police officer is under investigation by the federal government on suspicion of mail fraud.

Peter Luchansky, 59, had a criminal complaint filed against him Wednesday in the U.S. Northern District Court of Ohio in Akron.

An affidavit filed in federal court in support of the criminal complaint said Luchansky has been the information-technology manager for Spectrum Orthopedics in Canton, an orthopedic surgery practice, since 2005.

The affidavit said that on Aug. 14, an attorney for the company contacted the Canton office of the FBI and said there was $2 million missing from the company and that Luchansky was responsible.

A grand jury is investigating the case. Luchansky was arrested at his Canfield home Wednesday and has a $50,000 bond, according to court records, although it does not say if he posted it. All weapons also were taken from his home as a condition of his bond.

The affidavit says that Luchansky was a police officer in Youngstown until 1983, when he was fired for stealing two bags of shrimp from a grocery store.

The affidavit said that Luchansky was in charge of all computers for Spectrum Orthopedics and also was able to access company computers from his home.

The affidavit said FBI agents interviewed an accountant, who said problems cropped up after a 2013 sales-tax audit. The audit showed a vendor for Spectrum that provided technology services to the company is registered to Luchansky’s wife and did not charge any state sales taxes.

The audit also found that the company was charging Spectrum four or five times more for parts than what they were worth and was billing Spectrum for parts that had not existed for years.

Luchansky was placed on suspension by Spectrum in July after the accounting group shared its concerns with Spectrum management about the audit, the affidavit said.

An attorney representing Luchansky arranged two payments totaling $62,000 to Spectrum in July and also promised that Luchansky would repay about $1.2 million, but that money never was repaid, the affidavit said.

Luchansky was fired Aug. 15, the affidavit said.

The company that was overbilling Spectrum had a Canton post office box as an address, and records showed that Luchansky filled out the application for the post office box.

A review of all services performed by the company showed that none of the items Spectrum purchased from it were ever delivered, the affidavit said.

Luchansky also is accused of using his wife’s credit cards to purchase equipment for Spectrum, so he could get the rewards points, the affidavit said. Instead, he used those cards to buy other services and charge them to Spectrum and billed travel, food, trips to nail salons, firearms and vehicles to Spectrum, the affidavit said.

Included in a list of expenditures is a $3,040 purchase from Jackson Armory, a gun store in Dallas, Texas, and $2,834 from Daniel Defense, a firearm store in Savannah, Ga. He also had a $3,978 charge in 2011 from the Harley Davidson motorcycle shop in Bazetta Township, Trumbull County.