View full sizeFormer Strongsville Councilman Patrick Coyne, seen here in June, is being treated after fainting and hitting his head, his lawyer said. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Any doubts about the vulnerability of the victim in a scam hatched by former Strongsville councilman Patrick Coyne evaporated Monday when 84-year-old Philip Sustersic entered U.S. District Court in Cleveland.
Sustersic, stooped and frail, shuffled with the assistance of a walker. His poor hearing required questions to be repeated, and he couldn’t remember facts he had told the FBI a few months ago.
Federal Judge Patricia Gaughan cited Sustersic’s vulnerability when sentencing Coyne to four years and nine months in prison. She said she would have given Coyne less than half that amount of time if not for his hollow promises of riches to Sustersic from a phony Krispy Kreme doughnut franchise in Brunswick.
“I find this behavior to be brazen and abhorrent,” Gaughan told Coyne before ordering him transported immediately to prison.
Last year, Coyne, 53, admitted to taking $20,000 in bribes from a Hinckley real estate developer, David Terry, who was hoping to buy business opportunities in Strongsville and jobs for his relatives. Coyne used the dirty money to buy a condominium in Marblehead valued at $290,000.
Coyne agreed to cooperate with federal investigators in an attempt to reduce his potential prison time. But in May, Sustersic’s daughter contacted the FBI to report her suspicions about the Krispy Kreme deal.
Coyne, who was experiencing personal financial problems, confessed to duping Sustersic out of a $32,000 investment in exchange for a piece of a doughnut shop — a plan Krispy Kreme officials knew nothing about. Sustersic borrowed $20,000 from a nephew, and took a $12,000 cash advance on a credit card, which he gave to Coyne.
Sustersic was hoping for a windfall of $50,000 to $60,000 a year to help support his family. His wife recently entered a nursing home, and his 47-year-old daughter is blind.
Coyne, who has since repaid the money to Sustersic, apologized to his friends and family, and particularly to Sustersic.
Patrick Coyne“I’m a better person than that, and I think over my lifetime I demonstrated that,” Coyne told the judge. “But I fell into a pattern. I truly apologize.”
Coyne was a longtime Democratic Party operative and a former administrator of the county coroner and county prosecutor’s offices. He was earning $120,000 a year when then-Coroner Frank Miller forced him to resign in October. He served on Strongsville City Council for 20 years.
Family and friends filled half of the courtroom visitor’s seats. Attorney Craig Weintraub portrayed Coyne as a devoted husband and father to his three children, and a successful public employee who had led a crime-free life until recently.
“This conduct was an aberration due to his financial problems,” Weintraub told the judge. “This is not a characteristic trait of Pat. It was an act of desperation.
“He’s been publicly chastised and humiliated by the stigma this case has placed on him.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nancy Kelley argued that Coyne has shown a pattern of abusing the generosity of others, accusing him of borrowing tens of thousands of dollars from other friends and relatives over the past 10 years, much of which he failed to pay back. But the cases were too old for prosecutors to file charges, she said.
In some instances, Coyne solicited money under the ruse that his wife had cancer. At other times he claimed he had cancer, Kelley said. Coyne has suffered from depression, high blood pressure and kidney stones, but there are no medical bills or documents to support Coyne’s claims of cancer, Kelley said.
“It is greed and nothing else that has put Mr. Coyne in this situation,” Kelley said.
Gaughan said she would comply with Coyne’s request to be sent to the minimum-security federal prison in Morgantown, W.Va., where the majority of the Cuyahoga County corruption defendants are serving their time.
Coyne was the latest among more than 50 public officials, employees and contractors who over the past three years have pleaded guilty to charges related to a federal investigation of government corruption in the county.
Coyne’s tearful 17-year-old daughter, Becca, approached her father for a final goodbye hug as he was being handcuffed, but an assistant U.S. marshal ordered her away.
“He’s always been there for me and there’s never been a moment when I haven’t been proud of him,” said the Lutheran West High School student after the hearing. “I couldn’t ask for a better dad. He’s worked so hard to support our family.”