(bright music) - A jury took just hours to convict former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and former GOP Chairman Matt Borges of federal racketeering charges.

A Cuyahoga County Grand Jury indicted more East Cleveland police officers making it 16 since August.

And the CEO of Norfolk Southern got grilled by a U.S. Senate Committee.

"Ideas" is next.

(bright music) Hello and welcome to "Ideas."

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

Larry Householder, once one of the most powerful politicians in Ohio is now a convicted felon.

A federal jury in Cincinnati returned a guilty verdict against him and former state GOP Chairman Matt Borges for their roles in a racketeering scheme involving House Bill Six, the nuclear bailout bill.

They say they'll appeal.

A Cuyahoga County Grand Jury indicted seven more East Cleveland police officers, several of them still on the force.

That brings the total to 16, including the former chief since August.

The CEO of Norfolk Southern answered questions from a United States Senate Committee yesterday about the derailment in East Palestine and the ongoing cleanup.

During the testimony a senator informed Alan Shaw that yet another of the company's trains had derailed, this time in Alabama.

And it took hours of meetings, but Akron City Council has approved eight of nine members of its fledgling civilian police oversight board.

Discord remains over one young Black nominee.

We'll talk about those stories and the rest of the week's news on the Reporters Roundtable.

Joining me this week in studio from Ideastream Public Media, Akron-Canton Reporter, Anna Huntsman, and Criminal Justice Reporter, Matt Richmond.

In Columbus, Statehouse News Bureau Chief, Karen Kassler.

Let's get ready to roundtable.

Guilty and guilty.

A federal jury in Cincinnati yesterday convicted former Ohio House Speaker, Larry Householder, and former Ohio Republican Party Chairman, Matt Borges, of racketeering.

Both Borges and Householder didn't seem to offer a whole lot of reaction in terms of their countenance or that type of thing, and they came out pretty defiant.

- Right.

They had been maintaining their innocence all along.

In fact, Borges, his team didn't even mount a defense.

They didn't put anybody on the stand because they felt that the federal government had not proven the racketeering charge.

Householder did take the stand, and I think he thought that his personal story, and the way that he is, I mean, he's a very good politician.

He's a smart guy.

I think he thought that that would be a position of advantage for him, but yeah, they both came out of the courthouse in Cincinnati yesterday saying that they will appeal.

They don't think they did anything wrong.

They don't think they're guilty.

Larry Householder said he's in the meantime gonna go back to the farm plant some vegetables, and get out his fishing pole to fish with the kids.

Borges was a little less specific about what his plans are, but they were coming out saying this is a verdict that they disagree with.

- Let's talk about him getting on the stand.

So Borges, no defense at all because he said, listen, what they're accusing me of they have scant evidence.

It's then he might have been surprised by that verdict.

I'm not sure Householder was.

- Yeah, he said he was.

- I'm not sure Householder was, but he basically, his whole defense was him.

And it seemed to me, I wasn't there in the courtroom.

It wasn't broadcast, but based on your coverage and other great coverage, and you had a tweet the other day about all the folks that have been really doing terrific work covering this in Cincinnati, based on that it seemed to me that he was treating his time on the stand like he was on the steps of the Capitol and giving a press conference that he could control.

- Well, he's been speaker twice.

He was speaker in the late '90s, or the early 2000s I mean, and then also speaker this time.

So he's been in this role before and has gotten a fair amount of traction and mileage from his story of being a guy from a central Ohio farm.

He's a good old boy, so to speak, I mean.

I think he was really hoping that that view would go across to the jury.

He certainly had moments where he was in conflict with prosecutors.

That cross-examination and I went to Cincinnati for that, was pretty amazing because he was pushing back pretty strongly against federal prosecutors who said, we have pictures of you with metadata that says this happened on this date and there's a picture of it.

And Householder was saying, no, that could not have happened on that date.

I was not at that steakhouse where you say I was creating this whole scheme to pass House Bill Six.

And I guess the jury just didn't buy it.

I think it was really interesting.

The jury got the case and spent what, their verdict was a little over a day after they got the case.

That's a pretty fast turnaround for a case that was this complex.

So it really suggests that jurors just didn't believe Householder.

- Yeah, nine hours of deliberation, a little over nine hours of deliberation.

I think you were making the point that I was trying to make, which was that he felt as though he could say, well, I just wasn't there and didn't count on the idea that there is cross-examination with evidence.

- Right, and the evidence, I think the jury obviously bought it.

I mean, like I said, there was metadata.

There were emails and recordings and all of these things that backed up the prosecution's case that Larry Householder had indeed worked with this dark money group Generation Now that was funded by FirstEnergy to build a team and become speaker and then also pass House Bill Six for the benefit of FirstEnergy and the two nuclear power plants that a subsidiary of FirstEnergy owned.

And then the Borges element.

And the prosecutor said he came into the conspiracy late, but he came in with his eyes open.

That element was keeping a possible repeal of House Bill Six off the ballot.

You might remember that there was a heated campaign to try to bring this to voters, and there were some ads that were anti-China, and all of these really groups that were very difficult to follow, but that's the whole crux of it, that this scheme was to try to bring this legislation for FirstEnergy, and then stop voters from being able to weigh in on it.

- On the very same day, by the way, a long time ago, Jimmy Dimora was convicted in Cuyahoga County of corruption charges.

He's serving more than two decades.

Both of these convicted defendants are facing up to 20 years.

Is there any indication that that could possibly be the number, or is it likely to be something lower than that?

Do you get any sense beforehand?

And we've got some time before there'll actually be a sentencing.

- Right, there's no sentencing date set yet.

I don't know, I mean, they do like you said, face 20 years in prison each of them.

I don't know where this is gonna go.

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, Ken Parker, was in Cincinnati yesterday as well, saying that he didn't wanna take any questions because the sentencing phase is still ahead.

So I think that this is something definitely to watch.

Now, there was only one count of racketeering against both Borges and Householder.

Jimmy Dimora, I think, was facing a little bit longer list of charges against him.

- True, that is true, absolutely.

Now, let's talk about other possible defendants.

There were several others that were indicted here as we've mentioned, one of whom has died, two of whom pleaded and testified in this trial, but there's discussion that there might be a whole lot more to this and other players may still face indictment.

Any thoughts on that?

- Well, I talked to David DeVillers, who was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, who actually brought this case in July of 2020 after the verdict came down, and he said that Ken Parker, his successor in that office, has made it clear that there is an ongoing investigation.

And so there might be more ahead.

It's been pointed out repeatedly that while FirstEnergy did enter a deferred plea agreement and agreed to pay a $230 million fine, nobody who worked for FirstEnergy at the time whose now gone, none of these executives have ever been indicted.

There's also the question of former Public Utilities Commission Chair, Sam Randazzo, who in the first energy deferred plea agreement said they bribed Randazzo, so he has never been charged.

His house was searched, but he has never been charged.

So certainly there are some people out there that those who have been following this case might say, hey, could they be next?

And that's the real question, is what's next here?

And I don't know if we'll wait until after sentencing, or if these folks could be at least looked at now.

I have no idea.

(dramatic music) - A Cuyahoga County Grand Jury indicted seven new East Cleveland police officers this week on charges including felonious assault and interference with civil rights.

Four previously indicted officers were hit with added charges.

Prosecutor Michael O'Malley referred to the corruption in the department as a cancer and vowed to remove, he said, every tentacle of it.

Matt O'Malley was referring to a video also in the statements he made amounting to torture, and emphasized that the violence against victims continued even when they had their hands up, or were no longer a threat.

- Yeah, he played a video during a press conference, was it yesterday or two days ago.

It was very short clips from each video in each incident, so we don't know what led up to the kicks and the punches that we saw.

It appeared that it was people who were running from the police and at the end of the run the police kicked and punched them.

And in a couple of cases there were men who were lying on the ground and they were tased multiple times, really disturbing video.

There was one incident where an officer turned down a street, someone was running across the street.

He hit him with his car and said over the radio, he struck my vehicle.

It was pretty clear from the video that he hit the person running.

And then as the guy was on the ground, apparently from the video had a broken pelvis he was tased.

And it was just really some awful stuff.

And again, we don't have the full videos.

We don't have the full story of what happened.

These officers like anybody else deserve their day in court.

- 16, and I mentioned 16 indictments since August when the police chief was indicted his more on financial type things, right?

- [Matt] Uh-hmm.

- 16 of a couple dozen.

Most of the department now is under indictment.

- Some of the officials from the prosecutor's office were kinda going back and forth on exactly how many officers they have right now.

They've hired a couple people.

It's somewhere between 20 and 25 active police officers there.

They're asking or it sounds like the sheriff's department is gonna help with the patrols.

The Ohio State Police possibly are gonna come in and help.

And one of the things that came out is that the FBI and the prosecutor's office, or an investigator from the county have sort of like a permanent access to East Cleveland Police officer bodycam footage.

So, they are going in kind of on a regular basis to check on these officers' work.

So there's also definitely going to be a chilling effect.

So the officers that are there are going to be limiting, I would imagine their interactions with the public out of kinda concern about what the people looking over their shoulder might see.

- There's a new chief too, Brian Gerhard, was brought in.

He's got the faith of the mayor who you wonder also about, did he know about this kind of stuff?

Go through the whole administration, I guess there should be questions about all of that, about how a department could be this rogue it seems, but here's the new chief he comes in and finds out that not only his predecessor, but now most of the department is being charged with crimes.

He's got a lot on his hands.

- Yeah, yeah, and he's not new to the department.

So yeah, it's hard to believe that he was not aware of these problems before taking over as chief.

I mean, this is something that the public in East Cleveland has been I don't know crying out about in public and in council meetings and to officials over the years about all the problems with the East Cleveland Police Department.

He has said, and the mayor has said that they are prepared to rebuild, to kinda fix the department.

There's members of city council and the public who say that it should be dissolved and the sheriff's department should take over policing in East Cleveland.

- We've had discussions not only about the police department being dissolved, but the city being swallowed up by Cleveland, or some other type of solution.

I would imagine those kinds of discussions will get heated again.

- Yeah, yeah, I mean, there have been deep problems in East Cleveland for years.

And it doesn't begin and end with these 16 officers.

(dramatic music) - Akron City Council confirmed eight people to serve on its fledgling civilian police oversight board this week, but it wasn't easy.

There was a stalemate over one of the nominees because of his alleged anti-police bias.

Anna, council decided to vote on the nominees individually rather than as a slate.

That cleared the path for at least getting eight people seated.

- Yeah, that seemed to be the key.

As you mentioned, the big barrier was a lot of, or I should say four council members were not in favor of this one particular candidate, Imokhai Okolo.

And initially council was voting on all the candidates on a slate.

And I talked to Council President, Margo Sommerville, about that and she said going into it, she thought that would just be the most efficient way to get them all approved, you know, this is nine people, but it indeed did not turn out that way as these four, and then eventually five council members continued to vote no just about this one particular person.

It's interesting that in the charter there needed to be nine votes, a super majority of council to confirm.

And it was eight every single time.

This was last week in the meeting until midnight that I was at.

- What's their problem with Okolo?

- So they continue to say that it is because of an alleged social media post that Imokhai Okolo posted, in which he referred to police as pigs, which is a derogatory term toward the police.

And this had apparently surfaced in his interview process.

And so the four council members said, we don't feel that he can be objective.

Now they did allow him time to speak in council at one point to kind of talk about himself and he said, I am a lawyer.

I am trained in this.

This was a post of frustration.

He didn't even remember the post.

He was like, if I said it, it was because I was frustrated as a young Black man in Akron.

He kind of listed his credentials.

And then I will say other council members spoke to his defense.

Actually, I wanna say, too, a couple people in the audience at council came and spoke to his defense.

There was a pastor who stood up and said, I've said that before and I hope you would not hold me to that standard as well.

I hope you forgive me.

And other people brought up the fact did we check the social media accounts of all the other people as well?

It seemed kind of on this one person.

- [Mike] He was the one Black man nominated for the?

- [Anna] Between the ages of 18 and 35.

- [Mike] So one young Black male.

- [Anna] Yeah.

- Which by the way, if this is springing out of the death of Jayland Walker, you would think that's a perspective that you certainly want.

And that's what we're hearing even from those who rejected this person said, boy, we would like to have someone else, but the question has been by the council president as well, who are you gonna find with these kinds of credentials?

- That's exactly what she said.

- A lawyer who's engaged in the community.

- That's exactly what she told me the other day is, I will tell you right now, we might have other Black male candidates who applied are between the ages of 18 and 35, but none of them have the resume that Imokhai has.

I mean, he was involved in mock trial when he was in college.

He just spoke to the Ohio State Supreme Court the other day about I believe evictions he specializes in that.

So anyhow, yeah, but it was kind of, you know, brought up from the council members in favor of him, that we need this perspective of someone who is most impacted by, you know, it seems police shootings across the United States.

And so then there was the comment of, well, we'll find, somebody else maybe who is a young Black male, but maybe doesn't have the same beliefs.

(dramatic music) - CEO, Alan Shaw of Norfolk Southern offered an apology yesterday for the train derailment in East Palestine.

He told the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works that he's personally committed to clean up and long-term recovery efforts, but he did not commit to supporting bipartisan legislation aimed at improving rail safety.

Karen, the derailment has become politicized.

And that was on display, again, in this Senate hearing.

- Yeah, this was the first opportunity for senators to talk to and quiz and grill CEO, Alan Shaw.

And certainly they took that opportunity.

Ohio, of course, has bipartisan representation in the Senate in terms of Democrat, Sherrod Brown, or Republican, J.D.

Vance.

They've actually been working together on measures that would increase rail safety, which they noted that Shaw did not commit to supporting.

And they've also talked about legislation and ways to make sure that Norfolk Southern stays in the area and pays for the clean up and associated costs, which once again, Shaw did not commit to paying for.

He said he wants to do the right thing and that they will stay, but he did not commit to paying for all these things that residents say they're gonna have to pay for.

I mean, there's potential health effects of this.

There's certainly the drop in home values and the economic activity that's not going to happen potentially because of this.

While there's politicization on both the left and the right on this, there's still a back and forth here on what exactly can be done when it comes to holding Norfolk Southern responsible, which there seems to be agreement from the left and the right that that's what needs to happen.

- We mentioned there's politicization, but there's also the idea that this is really a bipartisan effort amongst the senators in Pennsylvania and in Ohio.

And that was brought up directly to the CEO saying, listen, this happens rarely here.

Can we just get you to say yes, we think this is a good idea to have these safety measures put in place, but again, he wasn't gonna commit.

- Right, and it's not really that rare anymore for Norfolk Southern.

The NTSB announced this week they're looking into seven investigations in Ohio involving Norfolk Southern trains and derailments and problems going back to October.

That's a lot in a fairly short period of time.

And so there are some real questions.

I mean, you mentioned at the beginning of the show there was a derailment in Central Ohio by a Norfolk Southern train just last weekend.

And so there are questions about how to improve rail safety to stop these kind of things from happening again.

And certainly there are people on the Senate panel who have different ideas.

I mean, Senator Bernie Sanders talking about sick leave for workers, and J.D.

Vance saying, I'm a conservative Republican and I still wanna see some increases in rail safety regulations.

They might come at it from different areas there, but there is a fair amount of agreement that this is a situation that has to be prevented some way.

- I don't know how many years we've been together, Karen, and you're still trying to get acronyms past me.

- Oh, NTSB, National Transportation Safety Board.

Sorry about that.

- Thank you, thank you, kick save and a beauty.

Go ahead, Anna.

- I just wanna jump in and add that there were the other incidents under investigation by the NTSB, can I say that is it okay?

- [Mike] Yeah, after we've already said it, you can use it all you want.

- There was one back in December of 2022 and also one in 2021 there are some fatalities there.

The NTSB is investigating, looking into the safety culture of the organization of Norfolk Southern.

That's a hard one to say sometimes, Norfolk Southern, but I also wanted to add that I had just been reading an article yesterday that I don't know, were you guys surprised the fact that if you look at how many derailments there were last year, it averages to about three per day.

- [Mike] It's a lot.

- [Anna] Yeah, it is.

- But derailments aren't like this, you know.

When you say a derailment, I live near the tracks.

I live, you know, it's a two minute walk, a train can come off the rails and it's a slight adjustment to get it back on.

- [Anna] That's true.

- And on it goes, that would count it would seem.

- Right, and people say it's not always fatal, it's not always this release of chemicals, it's not always carrying hazardous chemicals, but in some instances it indeed is.

And I think people are pushing for better regulations, more transparency about what trains are carrying.

And then you also have people who say that moving these hazardous chemicals by rail is still by far the safest way.

- Additionally, there was a meeting yesterday with farmers at the Department of Agriculture and they were told that livestock is fine.

There was a testing of livestock and some wildlife there as well and didn't find any issues there.

And that there will begin to be chemical testing as early as today to find out if there's dioxin, or those other kinds of things.

So the idea is to try to assure the folks that are growing crops and raising livestock that it's safe to so.

- Right, and the farmers that Abigail Bottar talked to said it is some relief to at least be able to tell customers, people are here everyday or frequently testing and we'll let you know if we hear something, but it's just kind of that assurance of at least people are here doing something.

(dramatic music) - The city of Cleveland has filed a lawsuit against carmakers Kia and Hyundai for doing too little to prevent thefts which totaled 1,200 between October and December of last year.

Mayor Justin Bibb says, the carmakers prioritize profits over people.

The city has spent big money on police and other expenses dealing with the thefts and so hence the lawsuit.

Matt, it's not the only lawsuit.

Columbus has filed suit.

There are a bunch of class action suits, some of which were filed in Ohio that have now been consolidated in California.

- Yeah, it seems like these carmakers have a really big problem.

I don't know if the city lawsuits are eventually gonna be consolidated into something like the pharmacies where it's just these massive cases that went on for years.

- What is it about these cars?

For a while it was like Hondas that were getting stolen.

Now it's all you hear is everybody I know who has a Kia or a Hyundai is worried about it.

And what's the reason for that?

- Yeah, I don't know all the technical details.

The way that it was explained and it goes into some detail in the complaint filed by the city is that there's a technology called an engine immobilizer that can shut down, or not allow for an engine to be started when the key's not there.

And for some reason there's not this technology in certain Kia and Hyundai models that makes it really easy I think if you just plug into the electronic system of somebody else's car to then start it.

And so it's like 14, 15-year-old kids learn how to do it on the internet and are out doing it in Cleveland and elsewhere.

- Karen, you got some experience with this?

- Well, I don't have a Kia or a Hyundai.

A friend of mine, her son has a Hyundai and it was stolen out of his school parking lot in Dublin, which if you're familiar with Dublin is a pretty upscale area of Columbus.

The club that he was supposed to be using was in the backseat.

And then also another person I had heard of had their Kia stolen, got a rental car that was also a Kia and the rental car was stolen.

So I mean, we're laughing about this and this is just so.

- [Mike] That's terrible.

[Anna] I'm not, this is so sad and scary.

- It is, and it's very frustrating I think for people who are like, why can't this be fixed?

This is ridiculous.

This is a known problem, why can't it be fixed?

- And when you say the club, that's the thing that locks on a steering wheel so you can't steer it.

I mean you can start it, but you're gonna go in a straight line wherever you're going.

- Kia and Hyundai's thefts I guess have really boosted club sales I imagine.

- What makes the thefts unique too is that I guess if I was a car thief, so, I'm admitting that I'm not, but if I was, I would probably target, like, a Mercedes, or something really cool.

And yet these are as the mayor said, Matt, working class cars.

- Yeah, yeah.

And it seems like most of them are being recovered 'cause it's kids either joy-riding and posting videos of the car they just stole, or going out and using them to commit other crimes and then ditching them.

So yeah, these are sort of utilitarian car thefts, let's say.

- Yeah, the working class aspect though, you think about it, I mean, if someone gets their car stolen and they do not have the budget to afford a Mercedes, this is obviously gonna hit them really hard.

Speaking for myself, I am a proud Hyundai owner.

Maybe I shouldn't say that.

I don't want people coming here and stealing it, but yeah, this is something that has been on my mind a lot and I think you can go to a dealership and they are able to equip you with something now.

I'm not sure I really need to look into that though.

- You need a club, I guess that's the first thing, right?

- [Anna] I need to join in the club?

Sorry.

- Anna can't help it.

- [Anna] Yeah, but something like that, but absolutely, I mean, this could be really detrimental for people that are having this done.

(dramatic music) - Monday, on "The Sound of Ideas" on 89.7 WKSU, we'll bring you a conversation hosted by Ideastream's Taylor Wizner on the impact on Northeast Ohioans of ending pandemic food stamp and Medicare expansions.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching and stay safe.

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