William J. Edwards, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, announced that David T. Mazanec was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Patricia A. Gaughan in Cleveland, Ohio. Mazanec was sentenced to 30 months incarceration followed by three years supervised release. Mazanec was also ordered to make restitution of $192,415.89. According to court records, David T. Mazanec, age 60, resides in Solon, Ohio.

In July 2007 Mazanec was indicted on one count of mail fraud. On December 10, 2007, Mazanec pled guilty to that indictment which alleged that he was an attorney admitted to practice in the State of Ohio and misappropriated approximately $434,000 from the trust accounts of an unnamed woman and her parents. The indictment alleged that this family was seriously injured in an automobile accident in November 1999 and the unnamed woman was paralyzed from the waist down as a result of this accident. The indictment further charged that, in May 2001, the woman and her parents retained Mazanec to establish trust accounts with the proceeds of a civil settlement.

The indictment also alleged that Mazanec opened a trust account for the woman with $520,000 in May 2001. Subsequently, Mazanec funded a trust account for the woman's parents with approximately $275,000. The indictment alleged that, from June 2001 until April 2004, on about 25 occasions Mazanec wrote checks totaling nearly $330,000 from the woman's trust account without her knowledge or authorization. In addition, the indictment charged Mazanec with writing three unauthorized checks totaling about $104,000 from the parents' trust account without their knowledge or authorization.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney John D. Sammon, following an investigation of the Cleveland Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.