This post discusses corruption using a recent news event and a well written script from a popular sitcom. Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder arrested in $60 million bribery case Dan HornSharon CoolidgeJessie Balmert Cincinnati Enquirer criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday described the effort as "Householder's Enterprise" and stated that he and his associates secretly used money from an energy company to expand their political power, enrich themselves and conceal their criminal conspiracy. "This is likely the largest bribery, money laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people of the state of Ohio," said U.S. Attorney David DeVillers, whose office will lead the prosecution of the case. "This was bribery, plain and simple. This was a quid pro quo. This was pay to play." were four lobbyists and Republican operatives: Matthew Borges, former Ohio Republican Party chair and consultant; Neil Clark, founder of Grant Street Consultants and once called by USA Today “one of the best connected lobbyists in Columbus"; Juan Cespedes, co-founder of The Oxley Group in Columbus; Jeffrey Longstreth, adviser to Householder; Generation Now Ohio, a nonprofit that federal prosecutors link to Longstreth and Householder, also faces racketeering charges. DeVillers said the arrests Tuesday will not end the investigation and that agents will continue to interview potential witnesses and execute search warrants in the coming days and weeks. "We're not done with this case," he said. "There are a lot of federal agents knocking on a lot of doors." The criminal complaint accused Householder of creating an enterprise, Generation Now Ohio, to collect large sums of money for him and others involved in the conspiracy and to advocate for the bailout of the nuclear plants. Some of the money also was spent on Householder's political campaign, as well as on the campaigns of allies, the complaint said. "The millions paid into the entity were akin to bags of cash," prosecutors said in the complaint. "Unlike campaign or PAC contributions, they were not regulated, not reported, not subject to public scrutiny – and the enterprise freely spent the bribe payments to further the enterprise’s political interests and to enrich themselves.” The Generation Now named in the complaint is unrelated to the Cincinnati-based workforce development nonprofit of the same name. FBI: Corruption unacceptable DeVillers said Generation Now was set up as a social welfare entity, which allowed it to avoid disclosing its donors. But he said "not a dime of the money" that flowed to the group went to social programs. Instead, he said, the group's purpose was to protect the nuclear plant bailout and enrich Householder and the others. The arrests are the result of a nearly two-year FBI investigation that included undercover federal agents who met with Householder and Clark, as well as surveillance that allowed investigators to obtain text messages, emails and other communications between those who have been charged. Chris Hoffman, special agent in charge of the FBI's Cincinnati office, which led the investigation, said the charges Tuesday represent "a shameful betrayal of the public trust." "Today's announcement comes with a warning," Hoffman said. "From the city council to the statehouse, all forms of public corruption are unacceptable." Householder, 61, and the other four men made their initial appearance electronically in federal court early Tuesday afternoon. They were released from custody afterward, with travel restrictions and prohibitions on contact with others involved in the case. All face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Agents made the arrests of Householder, Borges and Clark on Tuesday morning at their residences. It is unclear where the arrests of Longstreth and Cespedes took place. House Bill 6, signed by DeWine in July, authorized using ratepayer fees for the $1 billion bailout. The fight to approve the money was long and costly, extending even after the bill was signed into law. An effort to overturn the bailout ultimately failed after it met fierce resistance from well-funded competition, including Generation Now, a 501(c)(4) "dark money" operation. The group hired blockers to stall signature collectors working for those opposed to the bailout, preventing the repeal from getting on the ballot. The second group, Ohioans for Energy Security, paid for millions of dollars in advertisements, including ones that warned Ohioans that the Chinese would take over Ohio’s power grid if voters repealed the bailout. FirstEnergy, which spun off FirstEnergy Solutions in bankruptcy proceedings, gave more than $1.1 million to Ohio politicians, including Householder, between 2017 and 2019. FirstEnergy Solutions was later renamed Energy Harbor Corp. The documents unsealed Tuesday afternoon did not name FirstEnergy Solutions, but they did state that a firm identified only as "Company A" owned the nuclear plants and paid Householder’s enterprise $60,886,835.86 in secret payments over the three-year period in exchange for the billion-dollar-bailout. The enterprise concealed the payments ... to receive the bribe money and then transferring the payments internally to a web of related entities and accounts.” DeVillers said Company A was the sole source of money to the enterprise, which was Generation Now. No one from the company has been charged. The 82-page criminal complaint alleges Generation Now received about $60 million in exchange for Householder and other’s help in the passage of House Bill 6 and the blocking of a ballot initiative to overturn the legislation. DeVillers said the racketeering enterprise kicked into high gear during the ballot initiative, as Householder, Company A and the others sought to derail the effort. "It really got heavy when they needed to kill the petition drive," DeVillers said. The activities took place from March 2017 through earlier this year, federal officials said, with quarterly payments of $250,000 from related energy companies deposited into the bank account of Generation Now. More than $1 million was spent on negative ads against those candidates’ opponents, with additional funds paying for Householder’s campaign staff, according to documents. Most of the backed candidates won in 2018, and all supported Householder’s election as Speaker, investigators said. Additionally, Householder received $400,000-plus in personal benefits, including funds to settle a personal lawsuit, to pay off credit card debt and for costs associated with his home in Florida, according to documents. Other funds were used to pay for insider information about a ballot initiative to stop House Bill 6. More about Householder Householder also came under FBI scrutiny during his first term as Ohio's House speaker from 2001 to 2004. The FBI launched an investigation in 2004 into allegations that Householder and his aides took kickbacks from vendors and traded legislation for campaign contributions. The investigation ended in 2006 with no charges filed. A term-limited Householder left Columbus in 2004 during the investigation. After returning to the House a few years ago, Householder staged a comeback, with help from Democrats, when he took advantage of GOP infighting and returned to the speaker's post. "When everyone else is in complete disarray is usually when I'm at my best," Householder told The Enquirer in 2019. His rough-and-tumble approach to politics was reflected often in the criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday. In a conversation recorded by the FBI in January 2018, Householder discussed how he would use Generation Now money to help political allies. This top Ohio Republican has made a career of thriving in chaos https://www.cincinnati.com/story/ne...icial-charged-federal-prosecutors/5477862002/ Below is a dialogue from Better Calll Saul describing the thought process behind corruption. I have annotated my thoughts as well. In future posts in this thread, I will discuss how widespread corruption has caused economic underperformance in countries and ideas on making corruption a less viable alternative than doing ones job ethically and legally. Mike Ehrmantraut : You let some things slide and you look the other way. You bust a drug dealer that has more cash than you'll ever earn in a lifetime. Some of it doesn't make it back into evidence. So what? You took a taste. (Minimizes seriousness of crime) So did everyone else.(Justification) That's how you knew you were safe.(Justification, but in some situations, it could be dangerous being the odd man out) It's like killing Caesar. Everyone's guilty. Matt wasn't dirty. I was. Everyone was in that precinct. That's how it worked. You turn in your buddy, you're screwing yourself. You go along to get along. Stacey Ehrmantraut : And you went along? Mike Ehrmantraut : I did. Yeah. I did. Stacey Ehrmantraut : Okay. But you said Matt didn't. Mike Ehrmantraut : No, not Matt. Fensky got to Hoffman early - kickbacks from some gang or another. Protection, basically. And Hoffman went to Matty and offered to cut him in. Only fair, right? They were partners. And Matt did what you would think. He agonized. And then he came to me, wanted to go to the I.A., do the right thing, shut 'em down. Stacey Ehrmantraut : Oh, my God. And you let him? That's why he got killed 'cause he was gonna turn on those guys? Mike Ehrmantraut : No. No. I told... (As a side note, great scripting... Mike realizes that Stacey being an outsider would not understand the thought process of a cop, especially a bad cop, so Mike interjects background information). [sighs] Mike Ehrmantraut : You know what a cop fears most? More than getting shot, more than anything? Prison. Getting locked up with everybody you put away. You threaten a cop with that, you make him dangerous, and that's what I told him. I talked sense. No one was getting hurt. But if you go to the I.A., if you even look like you're going. He had a wife, a kid, responsibilities. Take the money. Do something good with it. [chuckles wryly] Mike Ehrmantraut : Well I tried. I tried. But he wouldn't listen. My boy was stubborn. My boy was strong. And he was gonna get himself killed. So I told him... I told him I did it, too. That I was like Hoffman, getting by, and that's what you heard that night me talking him down, him kicking and screaming until the fight went out of him. He put me up on a pedestal, and I had to show him that I was down in the gutter with the rest of 'em. [moaning] Mike Ehrmantraut : I broke my boy. I broke my boy. Mike Ehrmantraut : He went to Hoffman, he took the money, but he hesitated. Even *looking* like you're doing the right thing to those two meant that he wasn't solid, that he couldn't be trusted. I got Matty to take the money. And they killed him two days later. He was the strongest person that I ever knew. He'd have never done it, not even to save himself. I was the only one I was the only one that could get him to debase himself like that. And it was for nothing. I made him lesser. I made him like me. And the bastards killed him anyway. Stacey Ehrmantraut : Hoffman and Fensky - if they killed Matty, who killed them? Pop. What happened? Mike Ehrmantraut : You know what happened. The question is... can you live with it? The above dialogue, although from a fictional TV show, highlights dramatically several elements commonly involved with corruption. The minimization of the crime and the Justification of the crime. The necessity of having others involved with you for protection. The risk of unintentionally getting others involved you care about, but are unsuited as criminals. The potential of needing to escalate the seriousness of crimes in order to avoid getting caught is yet another risk of corruption. Oh, and of course, getting caught. The Ohio House Speaker who got arrested was morbidly obese. Was the cause of his obesity due to stress hormones? Or was this guy a greedy hog in more ways than one? Was this guy part of a family long involved in politics either directly or indirectly? How many of this corrupt politician’s direct and indirect associates are involved? How many other businesses? What crimes were previously swept under the rug due to his influence?