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SOUTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. (AP) — A former boxing promoter, ex-college basketball coach and founder of a Rhode Island-based sport institute was convicted Monday of embezzling from the nonprofit organization he founded three decades ago.
Dan Doyle, of the Institute for International Sport, was found guilty by a jury of 18 counts, including embezzlement, forgery, filing false documents and obtaining money under false pretenses.
Prosecutors said the 67-year-old 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.
He was also accused of forging the signatures on board documents, including that of Alan Hassenfeld, the former CEO of Pawtucket-based Hasbro Inc.
Doyle founded the institute in 1986 to create international connections among schoolchildren. It was best known for the World Scholar Athlete Games and drew high-profile people to speak at its events, including former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and Nobel Prize winners Desmond Tutu and Elie Wiesel.
Doyle was once a boxing promoter for Sugar Ray Leonard. He also was the head men's basketball coach at Trinity College in Connecticut.
He maintained his innocence throughout the two-month-long trial, threatening at one point to hold a sit-in and hunger strike in the courtroom over complaints that he was not receiving a fair trial. His lawyer said he and his family invested hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own money in the institute, which was based at the University of Rhode Island.
Doyle remained free on bail Monday and left court without speaking to reporters, though his lawyer expressed his disappointment and called him "a great man." His sentencing has not yet been scheduled.
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