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R. Allen Sinclair, a former attorney for former Youngstown Congressman Jim Traficant, pleaded guilty Wednesday to concocting an investment scheme.
(Eric Heisig/cleveland.com)
AKRON, Ohio -- The former staff attorney for Youngstown Congressman Jim Traficant was sentenced Thursday to 41 months in federal prison for scamming clients through a mortgage investment scam.
R. Allen Sinclair, who now lives in Suwanee, Georgia, pleaded guilty in February to 11 counts of bank fraud. U.S. District Judge Sara Lioi also ordered the 52-year-old to pay $830,000 in restitution.
According to a grand jury indictment, the criminal charges against Sinclair center on seven homes in Canfield, Youngstown, Struthers and Austintown.
Between 2005 and 2006, Sinclair's Newport Investments and Newport Development had property owners transfer titles to a trust he established with the promise that they would reap big profits. He told investors that those investments would satisfy the balance of his clients' mortgages.
In some cases, Sinclair had the investors' remaining property interests signed over to a co-worker so that the investor had no way of getting any returns.
Sinclair stopped paying the mortgages, the indictment says.
Banks eventually foreclosed on the homes, but Sinclair did not tell the investors. Most found out when the lending companies sued them.
Traficant, who died in September 2014, was convicted in 2002 of 10 criminal charges, two of which related to hiring Sinclair as his staff attorney under the condition that Sinclair would kick back $2,500 a month from his own salary. He was also convicted of asking Sinclair to destroy evidence and lie to a grand jury.
Sinclair testified at the Democratic congressman's trial that he paid the congressman $2,500 a month over a 13-month period in exchange for the job.
Traficant was expelled from Congress and served seven years in prison.
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