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Road Builder's Wife To Spend Year In Prison

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 21, 2008

TAMPA - Joanne Cone told a judge Friday that she should have been more aggressive in learning about her husband's activities, more questioning of his motives, more determined to stop him.

"Perhaps I could have convinced him to do the right thing," said Cone, whose husband, Michael, once a prominent road contractor, is in prison for bankruptcy fraud and defrauding the state.

Instead, Joanne Cone helped her husband perpetrate bankruptcy fraud, testifying in a bankruptcy proceeding that she owned a company that Michael Cone used to hide assets, including heavy equipment, from creditors during his 2000 bankruptcy.

Though her role in the fraud was by far the least among the three defendants - who included Patricia Rankin Grable, a former Cone employee - Joanne Cone's testimony was still crucial to the success of the scheme, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Porcelli.

Cone was sentenced Friday to a year and a day in federal prison.

Brother Testifies On Her Behalf

Referring to a statement in defense court papers, U.S. District Judge Susan Bucklew told Cone, "I don't buy the fact that you were blinded and deluded by love." The judge noted that Michael Cone had been in trouble with the law before. "It shouldn't have been a big surprise to you."

And the judge rejected any idea that the defendant was blameless. "You enjoyed the fruits of this as well," she said. "You lived in a nice house."

Still, the judge concluded that the public doesn't need to be protected from Joanne Cone, who is unlikely to commit another crime. Bucklew departed from sentencing guidelines that called for a sentence of 33 to 41 months behind bars.
Bucklew ordered all three of the defendants to share responsibility to pay more than $1.7 million in restitution to the bankruptcy trustees and the surety. She also ordered the Cones to forfeit their house and another piece of property.

The judge ruled that Joanne Cone did need to spend some time in prison, rejecting a plea from defense attorney Marcelino Huerta that she be placed on probation to "allow her to continue to mop up what her husband has left at the same time trying to salvage as much as she can of what her children have gone through."

Cone told the judge she has been seeing psychiatrists and treated with medications for depression for the past eight or 10 years.

The defendant's brother, Robert McDonald, an attorney, told the judge that his sister's decisions and actions in this case do not reflect who she is as a person. He described her as good and humble. "I can tell you she sits here terrified today."

Michael Cone made no plans or provisions for his wife and their two children, knowing he was going to prison, McDonald said. "He simply left and left it on Joanne's shoulders."

"From what I perceived, Mr. Cone had a Svengali-like control over Joanne," he added.

Before there were any indictments in the case in 2006, Porcelli has said, Michael Cone was offered a plea deal in which no one else would be charged and Michael Cone's sentence would be capped at five years. But Michael Cone rejected that deal, without even telling his wife it was offered, attorneys said.

Several Deals Rejected

McDonald said Michael Cone told his wife he was arranging for an attorney for her, but never did. "He took all the money, he took everything and used it on himself. ... Finally, my family hired Mr. Huertal. We all wish Joanne had acted sooner, had disassociated herself sooner."

A couple of months before the defendants were scheduled to go on trial in October, Porcelli offered Joanne Cone a deal for probation if her husband would also plead guilty. Joanne Cone rejected that offer, Porcelli said, and he decided that had been unfair.

So Porcelli offered Joanne Cone a deal that was not contingent on any actions by Michael Cone, but did require her to cooperate against Grable. Porcelli said Joanne Cone's attorney felt that deal would put pressure on Grable to testify against Michael Cone, and so it amounted to indirect cooperation by Joanne Cone against her husband.

That deal was also rejected.

The Friday before the scheduled trial, Joanne Cone pleaded guilty to bankruptcy conspiracy.

Asked by the judge why she waited so long, the defendant said, "I never wanted to go to trial. I'm terrified of this court and this process. To this day, some of this case is still confusing to me." She said when she talked to her husband about the case, he "would get pretty uptight... I was hoping my husband at that time would make the right decision."

Reporter Elaine Silvestrini can be reached at (813) 259-7837 or esilvestrini@tampatrib.com.

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