Conneaut Owner Axed

We're on the road on our annual park tour. In this morning's Pittsburgh Post Gazette, there is an article by Torsten Ove reporting that former Conneaut Leke Park owner and would be savior Gary Harris has been convicted of tax evasion and fraud in connection with proceeds and assets from the park and sentenced to 151 years in federal prison. He was also fined $95,000.

His partner in the Conneaut Lake Park operation, Michael Kotula was given 70 months and fined $100,000.

Harris' wife got 15 months and was fined $17,000.

Harris bought the 111 year old Conneaut Lake Park for $2.3 million in 1996. At the time he was hailed as a hero but in 2001 Crawford County foreclosed and turned the park over to a court appointed trustee, then to a nonprofit community foundation.

The biggest violation of federal accounting regulations involved $400,000 in Conneaut Lake Park receipts which Harris used for personal expenses without reporting as park income.

Now, a Disclaimer before Coastaplaya goes into attack mode : This is an article in the Post Gazette which is probably also appearing in the other Knight Ridder newspapers. I'm not personally saying any of this and I don't know if all the paragraphs of the story are appearing in either the version I have or any other newspapers have. I'm not responsible for any facts missing or present or true or false. I'm just passing on the contents of one newspaper article. So don't bother attacking the messenger.

Big news headline, left column, main page :)