CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Bobby Thompson, convicted mastermind of a national veterans charity scam that bilked donors out of an estimated $100 million, was sentenced to 28 years in prison this morning by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Steven Gall.

Thompson is a stolen identity used by John Donald Cody, 67, to set up the U.S. Navy Veterans Association, based in Tampa, which solicited donations in Ohio and 40 other states from 2002-2010.



Gall, who addressed Thompson as Mr. Cody, additionally levied a $6.3 million fine against Thompson, plus a $330,778 judgement to cover the cost of prosecution by the Ohio Attorney General.

The judge said factors he considered in determining the sentence included the eight-year duration of Thompson's charity "charade," the amount of money swindled from donors, the efforts Thompson made to hide his identity, and Thompson's lack of remorse or acceptance of responsibility for his actions.

Citing the damage done to veterans who could have been aided by the money that Thompson's charity raised, Gall also ordered that Thompson spend each Veterans Day in solitary confinement for the duration of his prison term.

When given the opportunity to respond, Thompson/Cody opened his remarks by telling the judge that his name is Bobby Thompson.

He did not address the crimes he was convicted of, but spoke about an incident near the end of his trial when he repeatedly bashed his head against the wall of a holding cell adjacent to the courtroom.

Thompson said he was trying to commit suicide, and added in a soft voice, "I was not thinking clearly."

He also told the judge that another incident in which he appeared in court, wildly disheveled, was not an attempt to garner sympathy from the jury.

Gall rejected those assertions, saying there was ample evidence presented during the trial to show that Thompson was a stolen identity, and that court psychiatric personnel found no indication that Thompson suffered from a mental disorder; noting that Thompson had said at the time of the head-bashing incident that he was upset because the trial was not going well.

Prior to the sentencing Joseph Patituce, Thompson's attorney, had suggested a possible sentence of 14 years.

After his client got twice that number, Patituce said Thompson still denies that he committed a crime and will appeal. Patituce will not be handling that appeal.

Patituce said Thompson's refusal to testify in the trial on his own behalf was pivotal. "If he would have testified the verdict would have been different," Patituce said.

Brad Tammaro, an assistant attorney general prosecuting the case, argued against Patituce's suggested 14-year sentence for Thompson, calling that sentence "totally inappropriate."

Tammaro also said that "the evidence in the case demonstrates a complete lack of remorse" on the part of Thompson.

The prosecutor said Thompson was planning to create new charity scams just before he was arrested in 2012, and noted that millions of dollars collected by Thompson remain missing and Thompson has not disclosed where those funds could be found.

Thompson disappeared in 2010 when investigations by the St. Petersburg Times newspaper and the Ohio Attorney General exposed his group as a phony charity, consisting largely of hired telemarketers, numerous bank accounts and rented mailboxes.

Thompson was on the run for nearly two years before he was found and arrested in Portland, Ore., by U.S. marshals from Cleveland. The marshals found nearly $1 million in cash that Thompson had kept in a rented storage locker.

Initially, Thompson planned to represent himself in court, and filed a blizzard of motions that included assertions that he was a CIA operative or government agent who ran the association to further American national interests.

His six-week trial, starting in October, featured the testimony of 42 prosecution witnesses before ending in a series of abrupt surprises when Thompson refused to take the stand to testify on his own behalf, and his attorney rested his defense without calling any witnesses and made no final argument to the jury.

Jurors took only three hours to find Thompson guilty of charges including racketeering, theft, identity theft and money laundering.

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