Company owned by former Trotwood mayor sentenced to pay $1,500 fine

Apr. 30—Green Star Trucking, the company owned by former Trotwood Mayor Joyce Sutton Cameron, was sentenced today to pay a fine of $1,500 on one felony count of conspiracy to engage in mail fraud.

It is the fifth sentencing by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas M. Rose in the Dayton region public corruption case announced in 2019 by federal prosecutors.

Green Star pleaded guilty in December.

The company's co-defendant, Steve Rauch Inc., owned by Germantown businessman Steve Rauch, was sentenced in February to pay $15,000 after also pleading guilty to conspiracy to engage in mail fraud.

Green Star earlier argued that it should be fined no more than $1,500 according to Green Star attorney Lawrence J. Gregor In a sentencing memorandum submitted to Rose.

The maximum penalty the company faced is one to five years of probation and a fine of not more than $500,000.

The memorandum argued that co-defendant Steve Rauch Inc. was 90 percent culpable in the crime and so Green Star should only have to pay 10 percent of what Rauch's company was fined.

The December guilty pleas came after prosecutors agreed to dismiss all charges filed in 2019 against Rauch, 65, of Germantown; Sutton Cameron, 72; and her husband James Cameron, 82.

Rauch, Sutton Cameron and James Cameron, a Green Star employee, all had all faced prison sentences if they had been convicted of the original charges of one of count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and six counts of mail fraud filed by the federal government last year.

Rauch, who also owns SRI and Rauch Trucking, and Sutton Cameron had pleaded not guilty to those charges but James Cameron never entered a plea.

The conspiracy charge the two companies pleaded guilty to involves a demolition contract Steve Rauch Inc. completed for the city of Dayton in 2014, according to the bill of information containing the charge.

Green Star Trucking did some worked on that project but Rauch and Cameron's companies defrauded the city of Dayton by falsely claiming that Green Star had done additional work that it did not perform.

This allowed Rauch to fulfill the city's requirement that disadvantaged small or women-owned businesses participate in city demolition contracts.

Steve Rauch Inc. had not met the required disadvantaged business participation goal and asked Green Star Trucking to "falsely certify that it had completed and been paid for several thousand dollars' worth of additional work on the project," according to the bill of information.

Green Star agreed and signed the false paperwork, according to the bill of information.

The court documents do not specify which project or how much money was involved. Rose said in February that he was not sentencing Rauch Inc. to pay restitution because the work was completed, so the city of Dayton did not lose money.

A Dayton Daily News investigation published in December 2019 found that Rauch used Green Star to meet minority contracting goals for nearly $4.7 million in city of Dayton demolition contracts between 2008 and 2016. The investigation also found that Green Star won work as a subcontractor on at least 34 public contracts since 2008.

Three other cases that were part of the federal investigation dubbed Operation Demolished Integrity also related to city contracts, including ones that involved awarding a portion of the work to disadvantaged, minority and other small businesses.

Three of those indicted were convicted and sentenced to prison: former Dayton City Commissioner Joey D. Williams, 55, former state Rep. Clayton Luckie, 57, and former Dayton city employee RoShawn Winburn, 47. Luckie served his term, Williams was released early last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Winburn was granted a delay to begin serving his term Sept. 6.

One case remains. Dayton businessman Brian Higgins faces trial on Aug. 2 on three counts mail fraud; two counts wire fraud; one count of tampering with a witness and one count tampering with a witness with intent to retaliate. He has pleaded not guilty.

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