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March 19, 2010

Embezzler faces more charges

Tax credit recipient allegedly defrauded elderly neighbor

FLINT (AP) -- A convicted embezzler out on parole who snagged more than $9 million in business tax credits from the state of Michigan was charged Friday with defrauding an 86-year-old neighbor with dementia.

A judge set bail for RASCO CEO Richard A. Short at $9.2 million. Short, 57, faces 24 counts of embezzlement, obtaining money under false pretenses and other charges in connection with money and possessions taken from the elderly woman. Prosecutors say he illegally used the woman's ATM card.

The situation has deeply embarrassed the state's economic development officials, after Short shared the stage with Gov. Jennifer Granholm on Tuesday as she announced RASCO would get $9.1 million in tax credits for setting up its headquarters in Flint.

Short was arrested a day later and charged Thursday with violating the conditions of his parole. Prosecutors brought the latest charges after finding that Short took money out of the bank account of an elderly woman who lived next door to him. Genesee County Sheriff Robert Pickell said police think Short forged the elderly woman's name on a power of attorney form dated last September.

Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton asked that Short's bond be set at $9 million, saying "a proper bond would be in the same amount of money that the defendant attempted to fleece the state out of in state tax credits."

District Court Judge John Conover went a bit higher, setting bond at $1.5 million on each of two embezzlement charges and on a charge of obtaining money under false pretenses, and at $225,000 for each of 21 charges of illegally using the victim's ATM card -- a total of $9.225 million.

Short, clad in an orange jail jumpsuit with his wrists chained, doesn't have a lawyer yet and didn't enter a plea Friday. He said he understood the new charges against him but called tying his bond to the tax credit "inappropriate."

"There was never an attempt on behalf of certainly myself or the company to 'fleece,' as the prosecutor said, tax credits from the state of Michigan," Short said.

"There wasn't a cash value to anything. We had to hire the right number of people, pay them the right wages and give them the right fringe benefits in order to ever receive ... a credit on our Michigan business tax."

He hasn't received any money. State officials are looking into how Short was able to win the credit.

In the latest case, Leyton said it appears Short stole thousands of dollars from the victim as well as items from her home. The woman had lived next door to Short in a mobile home park but moved to a Flint nursing home in January.

Officials showed a tape of an April 2009 court hearing during which Short told the court he was caring for the woman and didn't think she needed a court-appointed conservator to oversee her financial dealings. He said he didn't accept any money from her.

"I just tell her no, I really don't need money. I don't want to take anything from her," he testified on the stand. The judge appointed a conservator from the Family Services Agency despite Short's testimony.

Pickell called Short a "predator," saying the elderly woman's dementia was so advanced "she thought the (police) investigator was her child."

"Scamming the state of Michigan is one thing, it causes a great deal of embarrassment to state officials," the sheriff said. "But preying on an elderly, vulnerable adult is, quite frankly, another thing."

He said police also are investigating Short's interactions with other elderly residents in the Westwood Heights mobile home park where he lives in Genesee County's Mount Morris Township.

Short will return to court next Friday. He faces lengthier sentences than usual on all the charges brought against him Friday because of a history of fraud and embezzlement convictions that have landed him in jail and prison over the years.

If convicted on the 24 charges he faces in Genesee County, Short could end up spending the rest of his life in prison, Conover said.

Short was convicted in 2002 of embezzling money from Harding Energy Inc. of Muskegon County's Norton Shores and sentenced to at least two years in prison. He also pleaded guilty in 2002 to earlier fraud charges in Oakland and Genesee counties, according to Corrections Department and state police records.

He was paroled in April 2004, but was returned to prison the following February for violating his parole with additional fraudulent activities. He has been out on parole since January 2007. His parole was recently extended to January 2011 because he hasn't repaid $96,000 he owes in restitution, state Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan said.

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