Householder Trial Begins

Former Ohio House Speaker, Larry Householder goes on trial in the highest-profile reckoning yet to arise from a $60 million dollar federal bribery investigation that prosecutors call the largest corruption case in state history. The 2 1/2 years since the Republican’s arrest have seen the toppling of a Fortune 500 energy company’s CEO and other executives…the resignation of Ohio’s top utility regulator amid FBI scrutiny…and Householder’s ouster as speaker and his subsequent expulsion as state representative…the first in Ohio in 150 years. An indictment alleged Householder, former Ohio Republican Party chair Matt Borges, three other people and a dark money group called Generation Now orchestrated an elaborate scheme, secretly funded by FirstEnergy, to secure Householder’s power, elect his allies, pass legislation containing a $1 billion dollar bailout for two aging nuclear power plants, and then vex a ballot effort to overturn the bill with a dirty tricks campaign. Under a deal to avoid prosecution, Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. admitted to using dark money groups to fund the scheme and bribing the utility regulator.