Talk:Joe Mammana

Promised rewards due Crime Stoppers
Promised rewards due Crime Stoppers Friday, November 14, 2008 3:09 AM By John Futty

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Philanthropist Joe Mammana is in a Philadelphia-area jail awaiting sentencing on tax-evasion charges. Joseph Mammana, the jailed philanthropist who reneged on a promise to provide reward money in local missing-person cases, was ordered this week to pay $157,500 to Central Ohio Crime Stoppers.

It is unclear whether the group will ever collect from Mammana, who is in a Pennsylvania jail awaiting sentencing for failure to pay more than $1.4 million in federal income tax.

"I think there's a good chance (we will be paid) … if the U.S. doesn't suck up all his assets in wrapping up his tax-evasion case," said Kinsley Nyce, attorney for Crime Stoppers.

Common Pleas Judge Charles A. Schneider of Franklin County issued a judgment on Wednesday in favor of Crime Stoppers in its breach-of-contract lawsuit against Mammana. The judge ordered Mammana to pay $100,000 in promised reward money and $57,500 in compensatory damages and administrative costs incurred by Crime Stoppers while it awaited the payment, Nyce said.

Mammana, a wealthy Philadelphia businessman who promoted himself as a reformed-criminal-turned-philanthropist, visited Columbus in late 2005 and offered rewards of up to $100,000 in each of more than a dozen homicide and missing-person cases.

After an arrest and indictment in the slaying of 20-year-old Julie Popovich, the Crime Stoppers board voted to distribute $31,000 of the reward money to six tipsters whose information led police to the suspect.

Mammana declined to provide the money, saying he paid only for convictions. A Gahanna couple eventually stepped in to cover the $31,000.

Crime Stoppers sued Mammana for the unpaid reward money in November 2006. Within weeks, he was indicted on federal tax-evasion and weapons charges. Federal prosecutors said he failed to pay taxes on income of more than $4.2 million from 2001 to 2005 and possessed a firearm despite a record of felony convictions.

Mammana pleaded guilty in March 2007 and is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 15 in federal court in Philadelphia. He is being held at the Montgomery County jail in suburban Philadelphia, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office said.

jfutty@dispatch.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.160.173.81 (talk) 13:24, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

March 2009 federal sentencing
,  General Ization   Talk   20:15, 9 August 2017 (UTC)