Former Ohio House Speaker sentenced to 20 years for corruption conspiracy.

Former Ohio House Speaker Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison

Republican Larry Householder, the former speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in a major racketeering conspiracy that rocked the Buckeye State.

The punishment, meted out by U.S. district judge Timothy Black, is the maximum penalty allowed under the law.

“The court and the community’s patience with Larry Householder has expired,” the judge said in issuing the sentence on June 29.

Householder, 64, and former Ohio Republican Party chairman Matthew Borges, 50, were convicted in March—each on a single racketeering charge—after a six-week trial.

The jury found that Householder organized and Borges participated in a $60 million bribery scheme funded by Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. to establish Householder’s power, elect his allies, pass a $1 billion bailout for a FirstEnergy affiliate’s aging nuclear plants, and then thwart a ballot effort to overturn the bill.

The scheme was “one of the largest public corruption conspiracies in Ohio history,” according to Kenneth Parker, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio.

“Elected officials owe a duty to provide honest services to their constituents—transparency, integrity, and accountability are foundational principles of democracy,” Parker noted in a statement. “Householder once held one of the three most powerful officers in the State of Ohio. Now, because of his corruption, he will serve a substantial prison sentence.”

Borges will be sentenced on June 30.

Sentencing

Prior to his sentencing, Householder appealed to the judge for leniency, holding that a longer sentence would hurt his family members more than it would him.

“I wasn’t power hungry. I went home,” he said, referencing his departure from the Ohio House between speakerships. He added that he and his wife had given “every ounce of energy we have to make life better for others.”

Judge Black, however, was unmoved. Citing Householder’s obscene statements presented at trial, he challenged the politician’s depiction of himself as a family-oriented man.

“‘If you’re going to [expletive] with me, I’m going to [expletive] with your kids,’” he quoted, among other statements.

Householder, the judge said, was “a bully with a lust for power” whose actions constituted an “assault on democracy, the betrayal of everyone in Ohio.”

Householder’s attorneys had pushed for a sentence of just 12–18 months, holding that the humiliation and disgrace the politician had faced throughout the trial was a form of punishment in and of itself.

Prosecutors, on the other hand, felt 16–20 years would be more appropriate. Householder, they charged in a sentencing memo, “acted as the quintessential mob boss, directing the criminal enterprise from the shadows and using his casket carriers to execute the scheme.” That setup, they added, was designed to give him “plausible deniability.”

Parker, speaking to reporters, emphasized the importance of holding elected officials accountable for their actions.