$1M in scam money finally goes to vets
Ohio AG distributes roughly 1% of what perpetrator bilked.
John David CLEVELAND —
Cody, better known by his alias Bobby Thompson, spent eight years telling donors to his sham charity that their money would be used to help veterans.
Now, four years into his 28-year prison sentence on racketeering, theft and fraud charges, veterans are finally starting to see some of that cash.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced Thursday — one day before Veterans Day — that his office has awarded nearly $1 million seized from Cody to organizations across the state that are devoted to serving veterans.
“The con artist who took this money lied to people about how it would be used,” DeWine said in a news release. “Now that con artist is in prison, and the contributions of well-meaning donors are going to help men and women who served our country. It was a terrible scam, but something good has come out of it.”
DeWine’s office said it distributed the $976,000 in cash that U.S. Marshals found in 2012 in a storage bin that Cody rented in Portland, Oregon.
Each of the state’s five branches of the Honor Flight Network, a group that offers veterans free flights to Washington D.C. to visit war memorials, received $115,000 donations. Branches are located in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton and Findlay.
Family and Community Services received $100,000 for repairs and appliances for the Liberty House for Female Veterans and Families, a facility in Lorain that will provide housing for female veterans and their children.
DeWine’s office will also donate $7,500 to Veterans Court programs across the state, including those in Cleveland Municipal Court, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, Lorain County Probate Court and Summit County Common Pleas Court.
The donations announced Thursday amount to a fraction of the $100 million that authorities estimate Cody bilked from unsuspecting donors to his dubious charity.