Judge maintains Brian Hatfield’s sentence in EMS scheme

ZANESVILLE – Attired in a white T-shirt and navy shorts, Brian T. Hatfield sat once again before Judge Kelly Cottrill in the common pleas court room, nine months after he was sentenced for his part in the misuse of a half million dollars in public funds at a local EMS department he headed.

The 40-year-old Philo resident had filed an appeal in December that took issue with the 78-month prison sentence Cottrill had imposed on the former chief of the now-defunct Harrison Township Emergency Medical Services.

The Fifth-District Court of Appeals remanded the case back to the Muskingum County Common Pleas Court in July for lack of sufficient findings for the consecutive sentence totaling six and a half years on three counts: Money laundering, a third-degree felony, theft, a fourth-degree felony and theft, a third-degree felony.

He has been an inmate at the Belmont Correctional Institute in St. Clairsville since the sentencing.

Cottrill, though, maintained that same sentence for Hatfield, who pleaded guilty in November to the three counts, which stem from a four-year investigation into the EMS department’s misuse of funds. Hatfield admitted to using $345,000 in department funds to buy himself a Dodge Charger, $1,000 in clothes, 12 big screen televisions, and several computers, said Scott Longo, of the Attorney General’s Office, on Monday in court.

Longo was appointed as a special prosecutor to assist the Muskingum County Prosecutor’s Office in the case.

Hatfield will serve 30 months for money laundering, 12 months for the fourth-degree felony of theft, and 36 months for the third-degree felony of theft. Cottrill ordered that those sentences run consecutively for 78 months in prison, a rejection of the defense’s motion to run the sentence concurrently for 36 months.

Hatfield’s attorney David Sams argued on Monday that the nature of the charges and his client’s clean criminal history did not meet the state’s threshold for a consecutive sentence.

In addition to court costs, he’ll also have to pay all $345,000 back in restitution.

“I don’t think you have any idea the harm you did to your community,” Cottrill said to Hatfield. “You were in a position of trust that you violated horribly.”

A single prison term does not reflect the severity of what Hatfield did, Cottrill said in court, and the consecutive sentence is necessary to protect the public.

Hatfield and six others, including his mother, father and sister, were arrested in June 2014 after an investigation through the sheriff’s office and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation uncovered a scheme to spend EMS funds for purposes unrelated to the nonprofit squad.

The Harrison Township EMS closed in 2011 after successfully running since the 1980s. The squad served a 132-square mile area, including Brush Creek, Harrison, Blue Rock, Philo, Wayne, and Salt Creek Townships.

Those townships steadily severed ties with the department between 2009 and 2011.

It was a small squad of roughly 35 volunteers and an annual operating budget of about $14,000, Longo said in court.

“The defendant has absolutely no idea the damage he did to this small community,” Longo said in court, arguing for Cottrill to maintain the same sentence or even impose more time.

“He needs to be held accountable.”

Hatfield, who became the chief in 2005, signed for all sales related to the EMS squad— including emergency vehicles, and its contents— during its 2011 dismantling. The squad, though, did not officially shut down or go through state-mandated protocol of handing over assets to another organization that provides a similar mission, the attorney general’s office has alleged.

Investigators determined that Hatfield stowed $119,000 in cash away, which he used on a shopping spree, buying a Dodge Charger, televisions, computers and clothing.

He reportedly drained the squad’s bank accounts of about $200,000 and then signed for the sale of all vehicles and the building to pocket more than $150,000 in cash, the attorney general’s office has said.

Various gifts and stipends were distributed among EMS squad personnel, taking the total amount to about $500,000.

The six other suspects in the case previously received local jail sentences or community control sanctions.

elagatta@zanesvilletimesrecorder.com

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