A former boxing promoter, ex-college basketball coach and founder of a Rhode Island-based sport institute who was convicted of embezzlement is asking the state supreme court to reverse his conviction and order a new trial.
A jury found 71-year-old Daniel Doyle Jr., the founder of the Institute for International Sport, guilty of 18 counts, including embezzlement, forgery, filing false documents and obtaining money under false pretenses in 2016. Prosecutors said Doyle, of West Hartford, Connecticut, used the institute as a piggybank, taking more than $1 million to pay for things including college tuition and wedding expenses for his children and for plastic surgery.
State police began investigating the institute early in 2012 after an audit found it could not account for how it spent most of a $575,000 legislative grant to construct a building on the University of Rhode Island campus. The building for the nonprofit, which had the mission of achieving world peace through sports, had no electricity, plumbing or heating. The institute received more than $7.3 million from the state between 1988 and 2011.
Among other arguments, Doyle’s attorneys contend prosecutors poisoned the jury with an “avalanche” of evidence about conduct for which he was never charged - namely the misuse of the state grant and unpaid debt to the University of Rhode Island, the Providence Journal reported.
The judge was right to allow that evidence because the state needed it to establish intent, prosecutors countered. They argued the same techniques that Doyle used to hide issues with the grant and debt were the same used to hide misdealings related to the forgery and embezzlement. They are asking that the appeal be denied.
Arguments are scheduled to be heard Jan. 22.
Doyle was sentenced to 15 years in prison, with seven to serve. The Supreme Court denied Doyle’s request to be released on bail pending the appeal as well as his bid to have the judge on the case reconsider Doyle’s request for work release.
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