A would-be business partner of former Steeler linebacker Robin Cole was found guilty of theft and criminal mischief for removing $60,000 worth of electrical equipment from a Fayette County building Cole leases for his cheesecake bakery.
A jury deliberated for about an hour on Wednesday before rejecting Donald Lee Smotzer's contention he had permission to rip the equipment out of a building owned by Fayette County Community Action Agency and sell it for $3,800 to keep the bakery from shutting down.
In a criminal complaint, state Trooper Joseph Panepinto said Smotzer, 56, took a 1,600-amp service entrance, two 225-amp panels with breakers, a transformer and 900 feet of copper wire in 2009 from the building on Legion Street in Republic.
Cole testified he believed Smotzer had the financial means to invest in his bakery, Robin Cole's Unforgettable Sweets, when the two were introduced in late 2008. Smotzer testified he was broke, but he moved from Colorado to Republic in early 2009 with the understanding he would have a 50 percent share in the business if he managed it.
"I came here wholeheartedly to put people to work in the Republic area and get them off welfare and drugs," Smotzer testified, indicating he had worked as a real estate investor but had gone through a divorce and lost everything.
"I lost probably $11 million," Smotzer testified. "I was in no position to invest in a cheesecake factory."
Smotzer testified he had verbal permission from James Stark, executive director of Community Action, to remove the equipment so that an unused space in the building could be converted into a storage facility. That testimony was contradicted by Stark and Cole, who said they gave no one permission to remove the equipment.
Smotzer testified his intent was to use money from storage rentals to save the bakery, which he said "was collapsing" financially. He said although the bakery's freezers were full of unsold cheesecakes and workers' hours had been cut, he used some of the $3,800 to purchase cream cheese and other ingredients needed to bake more cakes. In addition, some of the cash was used to cover employee paychecks that had bounced, he said.
Gene Grimm, assistant district attorney, told jurors it did not make sense to bake more cakes when the company could not sell the ones it had in the freezers. He pointed out the bakery's financial problems did not start until after Cole was away from the business for a month when he was hospitalized with diverticulosis.
"Mr. Cole got sick," Grimm said. "That left Mr. Smotzer to his own means and ends. That's when the defendant decided to remove the wire."
Smotzer, who testified he lives in Kentucky, is free on bond pending sentencing at 3 p.m. Oct. 27 before Judge Steve Leskinen.
