Jeffrey Crawford, an Avon homebuilder who pled guilty to various charges for defrauding clients and investors of $3 million, was sentenced on Monday.
At a sentencing hearing in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, Judge Carl Mazzone sentenced Crawford to 4–5 years in prison. In addition, Crawford must make reparations.
Judge Mazzone stated that he will consider judicial release for Crawford after two years and six months if he has a plan to pay reparations.
During the sentencing, Crawford addressed the court, saying:
“Well, I’m incredibly lost on what to say to all of you that have been hurt, and how am I going to explain to you why it happened and I’ve come to the conclusion that it really doesn’t matter because it happened, I regret it, and you were hurt. You have loss, you have pain. I heard earlier that there was an understanding that possible compensation could not be part of the sentence. I have had many sleepless nights thinking about the hurt, the pain, and the loss. I am sorry. I am so sorry. I’m sick about it. And at this point, I want to make things right.”
His complete comments can be seen below:
“I think you suffer from something called terminal uniqueness, which is the repeated emphasis on the charity work that you’ve done is certainly commendable,” said Judge Carl Mazzone. And I’m not going to take anything away from that. But it does not absolve you of the back and grift that you’ve imposed on these six collective victims in this case.”
“Let’s be honest with each other. You ran a Ponzi scheme. There’s really no other way to put it,” continued Judge Mazzone.
According to Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court records, Crawford pleaded guilty to the following counts on February 24:
- Engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity
- Aggravated theft
- Tampering with records
- Securing records by deception
- Passing bad checks