- Five counts of tampering with records
- Two counts of aggravated theft
- One count of theft in office
- One count of telecommunications fraud
- One count of money laundering
If convicted of the theft in office charge, Yost said that Householder would be permanently barred from holding public office, public employment or “a position of trust” in Ohio.
The new indictment accused Householder of misusing campaign funds to pay for his criminal defense in his federal case, as well as failing to disclose fiduciary relationships, creditors and gifts to the Joint Legislative Ethics Committee, including those related to the bribery scandal.
Yost said that the state charges were due to an investigation requested by the Summit County prosecutor, by a task force from the state attorney general’s Ohio Organized Crime Investigations Commission.
This news organization reached out to a Cleveland-based law firm that represented Householder in his federal cases for comment, but the office did not return the call at time of publication. This story will be updated when comment is received.
Householder is currently serving 20 years in prison on federal charges after he was accused of accepting around $61 million in bribes from FirstEnergy via the dark money group Generation Now in order to make Householder speaker in 2019 and then to pass House Bill 6, a $1.3 billion utility bailout bill. He has appealed that sentence.
House Bill 6 was a 2019 law that watered down renewable energy standards and provided bailouts for Ohio Valley Electric Corp., which is partly owned by DP&L, AEP and others, as well as for Akron-based FirstEnergy Solutions, which owns two aging nuclear power plans along Lake Erie.
Householder was arrested in July 2020 along with Matt Borges, political strategist Jeff Longstreth and lobbyists Juan Cespedes and Neil Clark, who were all accused of funneling the millions in bribes from FirstEnergy through the dark money group Generation Now.
He was found guilty March 9, 2023 of federal racketeering charges.
Investigators said the money was spent to put Householder in the speaker’s chair, defeat a referendum aimed at stopping House Bill 6 and on Householder’s personal expenses such as paying off his credit cards, settling a lawsuit in Alabama and repairing his home in Florida.
Staff Writer Avery Kreemer contributed to this report.
About the Author
