In July, Republican Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four others were charged by the FBI in $60 million bribery scheme. Today, two of the small fish pleaded guilty in federal court. As noted by Courthousenews.com :
Juan Cespedes, a lobbyist, and Jeffrey Longstreth, a campaign and political strategist, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Timothy Black on Thursday, and acknowledged the pleas carry a possible prison sentence of 20 years.
Cespedes, 41, and Longstreth, 44, whose hearings were held separately, both waived their right to attend in person and joined via videoconference.
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Thursday’s pleas were the first in the case against Householder, and it is unclear whether the remaining defendants in the case – lobbyist Neil Clark and former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matthew Borges – will agree to similar deals or proceed to trial.
Longstreth set up an organization called Generation Now at Householders request to “be used as a mechanism to receive undisclosed donations” for Householder’s campaign. He admitted he ran the bank accounts to make “financial transactions that were designed to conceal the nature, source, ownership, and control of the payments made by Company A to Generation Now.”
Company A is the electric utility First Energy Corporation. They wanted passage of HB6, which in the new year requires electricity users to pay a surcharge to prop up two nuclear plants in Ohio and two coal burners in Indiana. Cespedes was a lobbyist for First Energy.
Shortly after his arrest, Householder was removed 90-0 by the House as Speaker. However, a vote to expel him from the house failed, and he has only write-in opponents in next Tuesday’s election. The Republican dominated legislature has also failed to repeal HB6, or even schedule any hearings about the topic.
Columbus and Cincinnati filed suit claiming the law in unconstitutional.
ProgressOhio has compiled a list of $6 million of campaign contributions connected to the FirstEnergy bailout scheme: progressohio.org/...