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COLUMBUS (USA) March 10 (AP) – Former state House Speaker Larry Household and former Ohio GOP Chairman Matt Borges were charged Thursday in a $60 million bribery scandal. Plan was convicted in what federal prosecutors said was the largest corruption case in the state’s history.
A jury in Cincinnati found the pair conspiring to participate in a racketeering enterprise involving bribery and money laundering after deliberating for about 9 1/2 and a half hours over two days.
US Attorney Kenneth Parker said the government’s prosecution team showed that “Householder sold the Statehouse, and thus he ultimately betrayed the people of the great state of Ohio he was elected to serve.” He called Borges “a willing accomplice” .
“With today’s verdict, the jury reaffirms that the violations of these two men will not be tolerated and that they should be held accountable,” Parker said.
Attorneys for Householder and Borges did not immediately respond to messages left Thursday by The Associated Press.
Prosecutors allege Householder engineered a plan secretly funded by Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. to secure his power in the Legislature, elect his allies — and then pass and defend a bill that favored the electric companies. $1 billion nuclear power plant bailout. They claim Borges was a lobbyist at the time trying to bribe an agent with inside information about the referendum to overturn the bailout.
Householder, 63, had been one of Ohio’s most powerful politicians — and twice elected speaker — until the Republican-controlled House ousted him after his indictment from his leadership post, and then in a bipartisan vote, and with Householder vigorously objecting, from the chamber . It was the first such eviction in 150 years.
He defended himself, rebutting FBI testimony and denying that he attended the swanky Washington dinner that prosecutors accused him and FirstEnergy executives of orchestrating the elaborate scheme in 2017.
Borges, 50, did not testify but maintained his innocence. Both face up to 20 years in prison.
The verdict comes two and a half years after Household, Borges and three others were arrested in what prosecutors called the largest corruption case in Ohio history.
Over the past seven weeks, jurors at the trial have received first-hand accounts of the alleged conspiracy, as well as reams of financial documents, emails, texts and wiretapped audio.
Prosecutors subpoenaed the two arrested — Juan Cespedes and Jeff Longstreth, who have pleaded guilty — to testify about political donations, which they say Donations are not ordinary, but bribes to secure the passage of the bailout bill (House Bill 6).
Lawyers for Householder have described his activities as hardball politics.
Jurors also heard recordings of phone calls in which Householder and another co-defendant, the late state House super-lobbyist Neil Clark, orchestrated a nasty attack ad — and ended it with an expletive. way, consider retaliating against lawmakers who have gone against Householder.
Household testified that he never retaliated against those who voted against his wishes or donated to his rivals.
Under an agreement to avoid prosecution, FirstEnergy admitted to using a network of dark money syndicates to fund the scheme, even bribing the state’s top utility regulator, Sam Randazzo.
Randazzo, who resigned as chairman of the Ohio Public Utilities Commission after the FBI raided his home, has not been charged and has denied wrongdoing. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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