Another innocent victim

Cronin gets 27 months for taking Cafaro loan

AKRON — Ex-Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Maureen A. Cronin was sentenced today to 27 months in a federal prison, convicted of two felony counts of honest-services mail fraud. It is the maximum sentence she could have received.

She also is sentenced to three months’ supervised release when she gets out of prison.

She and her lawyer, J. Gerald Ingram, blamed her problems on the loss of her mother and lifelong companion within one year, which led to alcohol and gambling addictions.

Cronin, 56, of Canfield Road in Youngstown, had pleaded guilty Dec. 15, 2009, to the two felony counts in front of U.S. District Court Judge Sara Lioi, who sentenced the former jurist today. No reporting date to prison has been determined.

Cronin was convicted of taking and concealing an $18,000 no-interest cash “loan,” with no collateral or payment schedule, from Flora Cafaro, the judge said.

Ingram said Cronin took the loan from the senior executive of a business that had more than 50 civil lawsuits before her, to pay off her gambling debts.

The judge gave her the maximum sentence saying that Cronin “betrayed the public she served.”

Cronin failed to report the loan as required on state financial-disclosure statement in 2006 and 2007, which she filed by mail, prosecutors say.