Equipment Leasing Fraud

John A. Spano Jr., 40, appeared Wednesday before Magistrate William H. Baughman in the Cleveland federal court. Spano is charged with mail fraud and remains jailed without bond pending another hearing.

Spano was charged after Steve Bolz, a U.S. Postal Service inspector in Cleveland, accused him in a sworn complaint of failing to complete lease deals or using bad checks for purchases involving clients in Wisconsin, Florida, Mississippi and Tennessee.

The affidavit alleges that from February to September last year, Spano used his business, Commercial Financial Group Inc., to defraud as many as 14 clients. Only four were idnentified in the complaint.

Bolz described Spano's Westlake-based company as a leasing company for industrial machinery. The complaint said Spano bounced one check for $117,000 to buy equipment that he wanted to lease and failed to supply equipment after accepting thousands of dollars in various rental deals.

The complaint said Spano rented a jet he claimed he owned to impress victims.

Spano has a nonpublished telephone number in Madison, about 30 miles east of Cleveland.

Spano's lawyer, Jerome Emoff, said Thursday that Spano intends to plead innocent and will seek release on bond at a detention hearing Tuesday.

"There are some people who claim he owed them money, and one or more of these people apparently have the ear of postal authorities, and he was charged criminally for what is essentially a civil case in each instance," Emoff said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Lynch in Cleveland said Spano was involved with the failed purchase of the National Hockey League's Islanders eight years ago. Authorities say that although he did not have the money, Spano convinced bank officials and then Islanders owner John Pickett that he had the resources to fund a $165 million deal to by the team. He persuaded Fleet Bank to help finance the deal.

Spano pleaded guilty to fraud charges in October 1997. On Jan. 28, 2000, he was sentenced in a Long Island courtroom to 71 months for bank and wire fraud charges, with eligibility for parole after 30 months. The judge ordered Spano to pay back $11.9 million.