The news this week of arrest of Ohio Speaker of the House Larry Householder in connection with a $60 million bribery case is not without a Union County tie.
State Representative Tracy Richardson issued a statement calling the charges of the case “shocking” but also holds connections to Householder in terms of campaign contributions and voting record, most notably supporting him for his leadership position and voting for House Bill 6, the energy measure at the root of the investigation.
While the dollar amounts in the case are “shocking,” influence peddling is nothing new to state politics. In fact, local connections to the selling of state favors are also not unique.
In the mid 90s, Governor George Voinovich’s Chief of Staff, Paul Mifsud, was being investigated by the state for “pay-to-play” dealings regarding state contracts and campaign contributions. Despite a 15-month investigation by the state inspector general, Mifsud slipped free of any and all allegations – except one.
And that one allegation brought the spotlight of state political corruption to Marysville’s Park Avenue.
In a nutshell, Mifsud had convinced a contractor to put an addition on a home and garage at 570 Park Avenue. The home belonged to a local doctor who was Mifsud’s fiancée. The contractor was paid about $110,000 for work valued at $210,000.
For his trouble, the contractor later received $3.7 million in non-bid, state construction contracts.
To make matters worse, Mifsud was also accused of removing building permits for the addition from the Union County Engineer’s Office. Some of the documents were altered to change the value of the work, while others were never recovered.
Mifsud eventually plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts in the case, after having five felonies and another misdemeanor dropped.
I had been at this job for a half-dozen years or so at the time of the trial and I can tell you that I was intimidated in that courtroom. National and state media members were everywhere. Interviewing the lawyers involved was straight out of a movie, with microphones being thrust forward and questions being shouted.
But there were no cameras aimed at me. This was not the case for longtime Union County Common Pleas Court Judge Richard Parrott, who presided over the case. In those days, you never really knew which Judge Parrott you would get from the bench. He was sometimes fiery, but other times sleepy. He was in no way meek, but at times he could appear disinterested.
So with the political eyes of the state on him, there was no way to know how he would respond at sentencing. As they say, it takes pressure to create a diamond, and on Oct. 9, 1997, Parrott delivered a jewel from the bench.
The judge sentenced Mifsud to six months in a work release program operated by the county. Six months was the maximum sentence allowed for the misdemeanors in question and Parrott made sure that Mifsud spent the next 180 days sleeping on a cot in the gymnasium of the old Seventh Street School building, where the work release program was housed.
The sentence came despite immense political influence being heaped on Parrott to impose no jail sentence on Gov. Voinovich’s right hand man. The judge received letters seeking leniency from the mayor and former mayor of Toledo, the former mayor of Cleveland, the chair of the political science department at Youngstown State University, the President of the Ohio State University, a former trial attorney for the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, the former assistant for personnel at the White House, a former Ohio Attorney General, the Ohio Speaker of the House and the Governor of Ohio, among others.
I know this because Parrott called out all of those individuals from the bench during sentencing.
“Shame on them!” Parrott said. “Allowing any of these persons, none of whom are citizens of Union County, to exert undue influence on the sentencing decisions in this case would be an insult not only to the court, but also to the residents of this county who expect fair, impartial administration of justice.”
Parrott also noted that at least one local elected official had submitted a letter of support for Mifsud, an act the judge found odd considering one of the offenses compromised the county engineers office.
Parrott said the letters made it clear to him that the defendant had not learned his lesson.
“It is apparent that the influence peddling, which was the root cause of the criminal acts herein, has not diminished,” Parrott said.
Politics are not clean. They never have been and probably never will be. From the members of Tammany Hall in New York to the modern Ohio Statehouse, leverage, favors and payoffs have always pushed their greasy tentacles into societal decision making.
Many elected officials serve themselves before they consider the people who elected them. In doing so, they become a mutating, incurable virus that infects the public body.
But every so often you see a glint of light from a public servant, be it in the wording of a bill or a decision rendered from the bench.
“This judge is a life-long resident of this county and was not raised to affirm or condone such conduct, nor do I believe that my fellow citizens of Union county or my family desire to tolerate the defendant’s actions or allow them to go with a ‘slap on the wrist,’” Parrott concluded.
-Chad Williamson is the managing editor at the Journal-Tribune.