Joseph W. Nagle, the former head of now-defunct Schuylkill Products Inc., will learn today in Harrisburg how long he will spend in a federal prison for his role in what prosecutors said was the largest Disadvantaged Business Enterprise fraud ever perpetrated.
Nagle, 53, of Deerfield Beach, Florida, must appear at 10 a.m. before Senior U.S. District Judge Sylvia H. Rambo for sentencing in the case, which also led to the demise of Schuylkill Products.
Prosecutors are asking Rambo to sentence Nagle to seven years behind bars, while defense lawyers are asking for a sentence more in line with what other defendants have received.
After a 19-day trial, a federal jury in Harrisburg convicted Nagle, Schuylkill Products' former president and chief executive officer, on April 5, 2012, of 26 charges, including wire fraud, mail fraud, engaging in unlawful monetary transactions and conspiracy, resulting from his role in the scheme.
Prosecutors charged Nagle and several other Schuylkill Products executives with using Marikina Engineers and Construction Corp., West Haven, Connecticut, as a front under the DBE program from 1993 until 2008 to funnel work to the Cressona company and its wholly owned subsidiary, CDS Engineers Inc.
Romeo P. Cruz, a Filipino, owned Marikina, enabling it to be classified as a DBE under federal law and making it eligible to obtain certain construction contracts, according to prosecutors. That, in turn, enabled Schuylkill Products and CDS Engineers to use Marikina as a front that let them do the actual construction work, prosecutors said.
Schuylkill Products manufactured concrete bridge beams and other suppliers' products, while CDS Engineers installed them. Personnel from the two companies used Marikina passwords, signature stamps, business cards, letterheads and email addresses and covered their companies' logos on trucks with Marikina magnetic placards and decals in efforts to conceal the fraud, prosecutors alleged.
Northeast Prestressed Products LLC bought Schuylkill Products in April 2009 for $9.25 million and continues to operate from the same site on Route 901 in Cressona.
Each side submitted a sentencing memorandum to Rambo in an effort to influence her sentence.
In its 22-page memorandum, the government emphasized the vastness of the fraud and Nagle's leadership of the company that perpetrated it.
"Not only was the DBE fraud long-standing, massive and pervasive, Nagle was shown to have knowingly participated in it directed it," according to prosecutors.
Nagle helped lead the fraudulent activity while he was company president, even though it started before he assumed that office, the government maintains. Three co-conspirators, Dennis Campbell, Ernest Fink and Timothy Hubler, testified as to his prominent role in the fraud, according to the government.
Furthermore, prosecutors said Nagle testified falsely at trial, as other evidence clearly demonstrated.
"These false statements were not the product of confusion, mistake or a faulty memory, but were calculated to cover-up the scheme," the memorandum reads in part.
On the other hand, the defense's 58-page memorandum paints a picture of a man who was not deeply involved in the fraud and sought to protect his family's company and its employees.
"Joe Nagle's virtues shine brightest in the way he has enriched the lives of those around him with his compassion and empathy, strengthened by the values of hard work and generosity instilled in him by his grandfather," the memorandum reads in part.
Nagle has exemplified those values both at home and at work, according to the defense.
"When Joe took over the business, he preserved Schuylkill Products' operations and management, carrying forth his family's legacy," according to the memorandum. "Joe made his vision of a more humane workplace a reality."
The defense maintains Campbell and Hubler, not Nagle, led the conspiracy with Marikina and he should not be punished as a leader.
Furthermore, Nagle already has been punished by losing his job, his home and the company itself, and should not be subjected to a long prison term on top of those, the memorandum reads in part. However, the defense did not set a specific term, although it said the sentences of 24 and 33 months received by Campbell, Cruz and Hubler are consistent with how other courts have sentenced defendants in fraud cases.
Nagle will be seeking appointment of another lawyer to pursue his appeal, according to the memorandum. Any appeal would be heard by the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Rambo is scheduled to sentence Ernest G. Fink Jr., Orwigsburg, Schuylkill Products' former vice president and chief operating officer, who pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States, at 10 a.m. July 14 in Harrisburg.