LOCKPORT – Michael A. Pendola, who ripped off several auto dealers in 2002 and 2003 by taking $122,000 from three downstate auto dealers for used cars from Canada and never delivering them, was sentenced to 16 months to four years in state prison Wednesday by Niagara County Judge Sara Sheldon Farkas.
Pendola, 55, formerly of Lewiston, was captured in the fall of 2013 at his mother’s home in Niagara Falls after having spent much of the last decade in Florida, which Farkas said now wants to extradite him for crimes allegedly committed there.
Assistant District Attorney Heather A. DeCastro called Pendola “a kind of catch-me-if-you-can individual.”
Pendola admitted that he never paid a penny of the $123,060 restitution Farkas imposed after a third-degree grand larceny plea in 2005, nor did he ever report to a probation officer as Farkas had ordered.
The repayment tab included $1,060 for a Lewiston couple who paid Pendola for a home-improvement project he never did.
Pendola, 55, formerly of Lewiston, was captured in the fall of 2013 at his mother’s home in Niagara Falls after having spent much of the last decade in Florida, which Farkas said now wants to extradite him for crimes allegedly committed there.
Assistant District Attorney Heather A. DeCastro called Pendola “a kind of catch-me-if-you-can individual.”
Pendola admitted that he never paid a penny of the $123,060 restitution Farkas imposed after a third-degree grand larceny plea in 2005, nor did he ever report to a probation officer as Farkas had ordered.
The repayment tab included $1,060 for a Lewiston couple who paid Pendola for a home-improvement project he never did.