Michael I. "Mickey" Monus (born 1947
) is the former president of
Phar-Mor
Phar-Mor (stylized as PHA℞-MOR) was a United States chain of discount drug stores, based in Youngstown, Ohio, and founded by Michael "Mickey" Monus and David Shapira in 1982. Some of its stores used the names Pharmhouse and Rx Place (purchas ...
, Inc., founder of the
World Basketball League World Basketball League (WBL) was a minor professional basketball league in the United States and Canada that ran from 1988 to 1992. It was founded as the International Basketball Association in November 1987, before changing its name prior to the ...
and was an original owner of the
Colorado Rockies, a
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
expansion team. Phar-Mor was a deep-discount
drug and grocery retail chain that established a strong national presence before declaring bankruptcy in the early 1990s.
[
] Accused of perpetrating an
embezzlement scheme behind one of the largest corporate frauds in US history, Monus was fired from the company and faced criminal charges. He was born in
Youngstown
Youngstown is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio, and the largest city and county seat of Mahoning County. At the 2020 census, Youngstown had a city population of 60,068. It is a principal city of the Youngstown–Warren metropolitan area, which ...
,
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
, which is where Phar-Mor was headquartered.
Early years
Monus was born into a prominent family on the north side of Youngstown, Ohio.
His father, Nathan H. Monus (1921–2016),
was a prominent businessman and the estranged younger brother of Mike Monus and Al B. Monus
(1918
–?). Mickey's mother, Frances Tamarkin Monus,
was a housewife. Mickey attended the
Rayen School and
University School
University School, commonly referred to as US, is an all-boys, private, Junior Kindergarten–12 school with two campus locations in the Greater Cleveland area of Ohio. The campus located in Shaker Heights serves junior kindergarten through eigh ...
, a boys preparatory school in
Shaker Heights, Ohio
Shaker Heights is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. As of the 2020 Census, the city population was 29,439. Shaker Heights is an inner-ring streetcar suburb of Cleveland, abutting the eastern edge of the city's limits. In July 1911, a ...
. He graduated from
Babson College in
Wellesley,
Massachusetts
Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
.
Monus returned to Youngstown, where he worked for a family business.
His return coincided with the collapse of the community's core
steel industry, and Monus became intrigued with the possibility of launching a retail enterprise whose operations stretched beyond the borders of his hometown.
Phar-Mor
Origins
Monus partnered with
David Shapira, to launch Phar-Mor, a "deep discount" drugstore which used a strategy of aggressive buying to provide customers with tremendous savings, if fewer selections.
With startup money provided by
Giant Eagle
Giant Eagle, Inc. (Western Pennsylvania English: ) and stylized as giant eagle) is an American supermarket chain with stores in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, and Maryland. The company was founded in 1918 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylv ...
, Inc., the
supermarket company in which Shapira's family members were large shareholders, the Phar-Mor discount drug chain became enormously successful.
In 1988, the chain featured 100 stores, and Monus was described in the media as one of the nation's leading
entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...
s.
In an effort to revitalize his hometown's deteriorating retail district, Monus located the company's national headquarters in a remodeled former department store in
downtown Youngstown
Downtown Youngstown is the traditional center of the city of Youngstown, Ohio. After decades of precipitous decline, the downtown area shows signs of renewal. Civic leaders have expressed hope that the district will emerge as a significant arts a ...
.
A notoriously tough negotiator, he was able to keep retail prices low; and by 1991, there were 200 Phar-Mor outlets across the country.
Sam Walton
Samuel Moore Walton (March 29, 1918 – April 5, 1992)
was an American business magnate best known for founding the retailers Walmart and Sam's Club, which he started in 1962 and 1983 respectively. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. grew to be the world's ...
once called Monus the only retailer that he feared, since he couldn't understand how Phar-Mor grew so rapidly in a short time.
[Farrey, Tom]
Souls of the departed haunt Youngstown
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...
, 2004-11-12. In addition, Monus and another Youngstown businessman, John Antonucci, were the original majority owners of
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
's
Colorado Rockies; they'd even secured the financing for what would become
Coors Field
Coors Field is a baseball stadium in downtown Denver, Colorado. It is the home field of Major League Baseball's Colorado Rockies. Opened in 1995, the park is located in Denver's Lower Downtown neighborhood, two blocks from Union Station. The ...
.
Rising issues
Amid this success, however, Monus began to show signs of becoming overextended. PharMor stores expanded into new lines, including sportswear. Meanwhile, Monus' decision to sponsor the
World Basketball League World Basketball League (WBL) was a minor professional basketball league in the United States and Canada that ran from 1988 to 1992. It was founded as the International Basketball Association in November 1987, before changing its name prior to the ...
placed severe financial pressure on the corporation.
It was speculated that Mickey Monus' father Nathan was somehow able to escape an indictment despite seemingly significant involvement in the massive fraud.
Dissolution
In July 1992, board members of Phar-Mor alleged that financial books stored at the corporate headquarters showed that the company had inflated its profits by huge margins.
It would be considered one of the largest frauds in US history.
[Moushey, Bill]
"Special Report: No deal for Monus, bad deal for fraud victims"
''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', 17 September 2000.
Court documents also indicated that Monus had
embezzled
Embezzlement is a crime that consists of withholding assets for the purpose of conversion of such assets, by one or more persons to whom the assets were entrusted, either to be held or to be used for specific purposes. Embezzlement is a type ...
about $10 million from the company, mainly to support his beleaguered World Basketball League
and extravagant lifestyle.
Monus' business partner David Shapira contacted federal agents, notified investors, and fired Monus, along with Phar-Mor's chief financial officer Patrick Finn.
[
] Unsecured claims against Monus totaled $4,104,121, while secured claims were calculated at $15,257,545.
[
]
The subsequent collapse of the discount chain not only marked the end of Monus' tenure as a leading entrepreneur; it disillusioned residents of his hometown, who were still coping with the loss of the community's steel-manufacturing sector.
Monus and Antonucci were forced to sell their stake in the Colorado Rockies. The scandal around Monus forced a last-minute search for a new owner; it was nearly sold to
Tampa investors before being bought by
Jerry McMorris Jerry McMorris (October 9, 1940 – May 8, 2012) was the principal owner of the Colorado Rockies of the National League from through . A limited partner in the ownership group that founded the Rockies in the early 1990s, he joined with meatpacking ...
.
Legal proceedings
Monus was eventually convicted of having embezzled $10 million.
:
ewas convicted of one count of conspiracy, two counts of
bank fraud, five counts of
wire fraud
Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to defraud another, and are federal crimes there. Jurisdiction is claimed by the federal government if the illegal activity ...
, two counts of
mail fraud
Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to defraud another, and are federal crimes there. Jurisdiction is claimed by the federal government if the illegal activity ...
, two counts of filing false income tax returns
tax evasion
Tax evasion is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to reduce the tax ...
, 96 counts of interstate transportation of stolen property
fence (criminal)
A fence, also known as a receiver, mover, or moving man, is an individual who knowingly buys stolen goods in order to later resell them for profit. The fence acts as a middleman between thieves and the eventual buyers of stolen goods who may n ...
(money) and one count of
obstruction of justice
Obstruction of justice, in United States jurisdictions, is an act that involves unduly influencing, impeding, or otherwise interfering with the justice system, especially the legal and procedural tasks of prosecutors, investigators, or other gov ...
.
Monus was found guilty on the government's second attempt to try him; the first trial ended in a hung jury. He was later charged with
jury tampering
Jury tampering is the crime of unduly attempting to influence the composition and/or decisions of a jury during the course of a trial. The means by which this crime could be perpetrated can include attempting to discredit potential jurors to ensur ...
in the first trial, but was acquitted.
He was sentenced to 19½ years in
federal prison and served 10 years.
[Wojciechowski, Gene]
"Rockies born of Monus' work, but he never saw his baby grow up"
ESPN.com, 23 October 2007. The sentence was reduced after Monus cooperated with federal authorities (FBI) in a case against another Youngstown fraudster, Richard Goldberg.
Youngstown State University
Monus was also a major benefactor to
Youngstown State University
Youngstown State University (YSU or Youngstown State) is a public university in Youngstown, Ohio. It was founded in 1908 and is the easternmost member of the University System of Ohio.
The university is composed of six undergraduate colleges a ...
, serving as chairman of its board of trustees. It emerged that Ray Issac, the quarterback for the 1991
Youngstown State Penguins football team (which won the
NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
Division I-AA National Championship that year), had received substantial benefits from Monus over his college career, including $10,000 in cash, and the use of several cars. The NCAA made an inquiry after being tipped off to Monus' actions, but dropped it after a cursory internal investigation by the university. The true scope of the violations was only revealed in 1998, when Isaac admitted tampering with a juror in Monus' fraud trial. The university admitted to a lack of institutional control, and docked itself some scholarships; however, it was allowed to keep the 1991 national championship, because the statute of limitations had run out.
[
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Monus, Michael I.
1947 births
Babson College alumni
American businesspeople in retailing
American white-collar criminals
Businesspeople from Youngstown, Ohio
Living people
20th-century American Jews
American people convicted of fraud
Abuse of the legal system
American businesspeople convicted of crimes
21st-century American Jews