CINCINNATI — Matt Borges, the former chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, was handcuffed by U.S. Marshals on Friday after being sentenced to five years in prison for his role in the largest corruption scandal in state history.
But federal prosecutors have made it clear they wanted to send a message to other state leaders who were involved in the scandal, and they are now pretending they didn’t.
The sentence for Borges, 51, follows a 20-year sentence that U.S. District Judge Timothy Black handed down a day earlier to former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder for orchestrating the scheme. Akron-based FirstEnergy and other Ohio utilities paid more than $60 million between 2017 and 2020 to pass and protect a $1.3 billion taxpayer bailout package that was largely intended to benefit FirstEnergy.
Borges received a lighter sentence because he was only implicated in 2019 when FirstEnergy funneled $38 million to a dark-money group that funded a nasty, deception-ridden campaign to defeat a citizen-initiated repeal of the unpopular bailout. Because those votes were suppressed — and because Ohio’s Republican legislature refuses to repeal the corrupt bailout — Ohioans continue to suffer the consequences of the extortion conspiracy, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Singer.
Most of the subsidies — those for two nuclear plants in northern Ohio and a fee for FirstEnergy’s “recession-proof” facility — have been suspended. But Ohio taxpayers are still paying hundreds of millions to maintain two coal-fired power plants owned by AEP and other utilities, including one in Indiana.
An attempt to gather enough voter signatures to repeal the bailout — House Bill 6 — backfired when Borges bribed a petition worker who had raised $15,000 for confidential information and opened channels of communication with GOP officials.
At the same time, “blockade” groups were harassing and allegedly attacking petitioners, and Householder’s supporters were flooding radio stations with ads falsely claiming that repeal efforts were in fact underway. China Wants to Take Control of Ohio’s Power Grid.
The scheme, which Borges participated in, was intended to “prevent Ohio voters from exercising their right to reject this corruption,” Singer said. “Ohioans have never had the opportunity to vote for or against this legislation.”
Singer also noted that people are only now speaking out about Householder, whereas previously they weren’t.
“It’s interesting that some people are contributing to (Householder) after the fact,” he said. “So many people knew what was happening in real time and did nothing about it. Not only did they do nothing about it, they helped facilitate it.”
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said Tuesday during an appearance on 700WLW in Cincinnati that anyone who knew Householder knew he was a “fraudster” at a time when a gigantic conspiracy was taking place. But LaRose never spoke out against the deal at the time. And in text messages shown to the grand jury, FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones said LaRose — who also runs the Ohio Ballot Board — gave him “private” information about the signature drive.
LaRose declined to say whether he had contacted Jones or what Jones had told him, but prosecutor Singer was apparently referring to the state’s top elections official mentioned Friday.
Not only did Householder, Borges and their Republican allies stifle a citizen-initiated attempt to repeal the corrupt utility bailout, but the gerrymandered Legislature now places Issue 1 on the Aug. 8 ballot. It would make practically impossible for citizens to initiate amendments to the state constitution. LaRose, a leading advocate of the movement, argues that it reduce corruption in Ohio.
During Borges’ sentencing Friday, Singer decried the fact that many unindicted players in the extortion scandal continue to thrive in Capitol Square. Among them is mega-lobbyist Robert Klaffkey, whose co-defendant Juan Cespedes testified a check for $400,000 in illegal FirstEnergy money across the table to Householder during a 2018 meeting. Klaffkey denied moving the check but did not deny being present.
Singer said it was extraordinary that Klaffkey “felt comfortable sitting in a room and handing a public official a check for $400,000.”
Klaffkey is not alone.
Megan Fitzmartin was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to facilitate Householder and co-defendant Jeffrey Longstreth create a pro-Householder Republican majority in the state House of Representatives. Now he is the director of policy. for a Republican majority in a divided Ohio district.
“Corruption — and tolerance of it — undermines our political foundations,” Singer said.
“When corruption spreads, democracy itself becomes a farce,” he said.
Cespedes and Longstreth have not yet been convicted, and U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Parker suggested Thursday that others could be charged in connection with the scandal.
