43
Man gets prison for threats to Betras
YOUNGSTOWN
A man who admitted mailing extortion letters demanding up to $4 million to Atty. David Betras and threatening to damage or destroy his law office with an explosive has been sentenced to 46 months in prison with mental-health counseling.
Betras’ former law client, Charles J. Reighard, 68, of Burghill, who pleaded guilty as charged, drew the sentence Wednesday from U.S. District Court Judge Sara Lioi in Akron.
After prison, Reighard will be on supervised release for three years, including six months of electronically monitored house arrest.
Betras, who called for a prison term for Reighard, also is Mahoning County Democratic Party chairman.
“Even though he is in custody and is, therefore, unable to carry out the serious threats he made against us, I will never forget the way I felt when I was forced to tell my wife, Pamela, and my three children that police officers were standing guard outside their home because someone had made a credible threat to kill us all by blowing us up,” Betras wrote in a victim impact statement.
Citing Reighard’s age, mental and physical illness, family and community ties, low probability of re-offending and acceptance of responsibility for his actions, Reighard’s public defenders called for probation with house arrest, instead of prison.
“The bomb did not contain any explosive powder and could not have been detonated,” they wrote of the metal pipe with end caps and a fuse found outside Betras’ Canfield law office last Oct. 16.
In a sentencing memorandum, Justin Gould, the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case, asked the judge to increase Reighard’s sentence because of the multimillion-dollar extortion demand and the use of a dangerous weapon, but he didn’t specify what he thought the total sentence should be.
As requested by Gould, the judge ordered Reighard to pay the $3,789 cost of the emergency response to the bomb threat.
Betras represented Reighard, who was charged in 1999 with vandalism over allegations he caused new cars to catch fire by deliberately driving a car into them at the General Motors Lordstown plant, where he was employed.
Betras negotiated a plea deal in which Reighard pleaded guilty to telecommunications harassment and was put on five years’ probation.
Reighard claimed, however, that Betras, the prosecutor and the judge conspired to get him fired from GM and to “ruin his life,” according to an FBI agent’s affidavit.