Convicted embezzler sentenced in $9.1 million tax credit case

By Kathy Barks Hoffman Associated Press LANSING (AP) -- A convicted embezzler who was on parole when he briefly obtained a $9.1 million state tax credit in 2010 was sentenced Tuesday to up to eight years in prison after pleading no contest last month to attempted fraud. Richard A. Short also pleaded no contest to unlawfully using a financial transaction device for using the ATM card of an 87-year-old neighbor, now deceased, who had dementia. Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Farah sentenced Short to 20 months to eight years in prison. "It was a complicated case in many ways and involved a large amount of financial records and countless other documents," Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton said in a news release in which he referred to Short as "a serial con man." Short was arrested a day after sharing the stage with then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm in March 2010 as she announced his company, RASCO, would get the $9.1 million tax credit. He got the grant after saying the company planned to improve the lives of poor people overseas by using renewable energy to provide electricity, clean drinking water, sanitation and telephone and Internet service. Short's ability to get a business tax credit for a company he apparently created on his trailer park home computer deeply embarrassed the state's top economic development officials, many of whom left as Granholm's term was expiring last December. Before his arrest, Short had a lengthy criminal history. His prison record and the fact that he was on parole could easily be found by searching the state's offender database online. Officials at the Michigan Economic Development Corp. said they never conducted a background check on Short. They also failed to check his other paperwork, including an apparently fake letter Leyton said Short wrote claiming he had $10 million in a trust fund to finance RASCO's operations. After Short's arrest, the Michigan Economic Growth Authority began doing background checks on applicants for state tax breaks. Granholm also ordered a shake-up of the Economic Growth Authority board. Gov. Rick Snyder, who took office Jan. 1, has tried to vastly decrease the number of state tax credits going to individual companies. Short was convicted in 2002 of embezzling money from Harding Energy Inc. of Muskegon County's Norton Shores and sentenced to at least two years in prison. He also pleaded guilty in 2002 to earlier fraud charges in Oakland and Genesee counties, according to Corrections Department and state police records. He was paroled in April 2004 but was returned to prison the following February for violating his parole with additional fraudulent activities, then paroled in January 2007. Published: Thu, Sep 1, 2011