Ohio Ethics Commission recommends enhancing penalties for violations | Local News

On Feb 7, 2022

The Ohio Ethics Commission has asked the Ohio General Assembly to beef up ethics law penalties for persons or entities convicted of providing unlawful gifts or payments to any public official or employee in state or local government.

Ethics Commission representatives met in late January with House Speaker Bob Cupp (R-Bluffton) and counsel to Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima). They recommended that the criminal penalties for providing unlawful payments to any public official in the State of Ohio be strengthened to include prohibition from participating in any future public contracts for five years, plus the authority for courts to order additional fines equal to the amount of such payments.

Currently, such violations of this criminal law carry only a fine of up to $1,000 and/or six months in prison.

“Passage of this amendment will enable the commission and other sectors of law enforcement to deal more fully with misconduct that may be related to bribery, such as in federal cases pending in Ohio,” according to a statement by Commission Executive Director Paul M. Nick. “Adoption of these penalties will also serve as an additional deterrent against companies or vendors who seek to wrongfully influence the use and expenditure of public funds.”

In response to questions from The Bryan Times, Nick said the Ethics Commission “had problems” with being restricted to imposing such weak penalties in certain cases in the past.

“… but what precipitated this move by the Commission was the deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with FirstEnergy. We’re not critical necessarily of the agreement itself, just troubled that the harshest penalty under state law for an ethics violation by a vendor to the State of Ohio or local government is only $1,000,” Nick said.

Added Commission Chairman Merom Brachman: “The Commission’s bipartisan membership aims to ensure that the law will clearly serve to uphold public confidence by stiffening penalties available for such misconduct in Ohio.”

According to the DPA, between 2017 and March 2020, FirstEnergy paid more than $59 million into a purported 501(c)(4) called Generation Now in exchange for Speaker of the Ohio House Larry Householder’s taking action in his capacity to benefit FirstEnergy through the passage and enactment into law (House Bill 6) of nuclear legislation.

Under the terms of the DPA, FirstEnergy agreed to pay a criminal monetary penalty of $230 million, half of which will be directed to the United States Treasury, the other half of which will be allocated to a public program for the benefit of Ohio electric-utility customers.

Householder lost his speakership and was booted from his seat in the statehouse by his fellow lawmakers in 2021. He has pleaded not guilty to a racketeering charge in the $59 million bribery case.

The Commission did not make a specific penalty recommendation other than making it strong enough to “include a significantly stronger penalty for criminal violations of (Ohio Revised Code) 102.03(F) … (to deter) persons or entities from improperly influencing public officials in matters involving public expenditures and authorities in Ohio.”