Leader of Columbus green-energy ballot measure guilty of falsifying campaign finance report
The person who led the failed ProEnergy Difficulty 7 ballot initiative very last November — which Columbus leaders termed a blatant energy to seize taxpayer money — was identified responsible Monday of filing a false campaign finance report in link with the petition travel for a related 2019 initiative.
John A. Clark Jr., led the petition push to get an initiative place on the Columbus ballot that, if it had passed, would have diverted far more than $50 million of metropolis money toward obscure eco-friendly-electrical power initiatives proposed by a team that would have been in sole management of the cash.
A jury in Franklin County Widespread Pleas Court docket on Monday discovered Clark, 50, of the Around East Facet – who also has absent by the final name Clarke – guilty on just one depend of election falsification, a fifth-degree felony, in link with the initiative petition drive.
The jury identified Clark not guilty on two other rates: a 2nd depend of election falsification and one depend of tampering with federal government documents,a third-degree felony. The jury was not able to achieve a verdict on a next rely of tampering with authorities documents.
The demand Clark was found responsible of relates to fake info provided on campaign finance studies submitted with the city of Columbus’ campaign finance place of work on Aug. 18, 2019. The prosecutor’s workplace previously explained the wrong statements are linked to the resource and sum of contributions produced to the ballot initiative.
Clark and his attorneys declined to comment Monday.
Clark continues to be absolutely free on a recognizance bond pending his sentencing July 7. A fifth-degree felony conviction is punishable by up to 6 to 12 months in prison and a wonderful of up to $2,500.
The 2019 ballot initiative would have redirected $57 million in metropolis cash to proposed green-power initiatives by ProEnergy Ohio LLC, a confined partnership team led by Clark.
Immediately after numerous iterations of the ballot evaluate finding submitted to the metropolis in the very last number of yrs, back-and-fourth with the city council and the courts, a similar initiative that would have redirected $87 million to ProEnergy Ohio made it on to the ballot in 2021. It was soundly defeated.
“These bogus statements (on the marketing campaign finance stories) strike at the main of our elections and was an endeavor to mislead the Town of Columbus and its voters,” then-Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien claimed in a assertion at the time of the indictment.
The prosecutor’s workplace stated investigators uncovered that 5 people detailed on the 2019 marketing campaign finance report – one particular who was stated as contributing $13,000 and the other four shown as contributing $10,000 each and every – gave absolutely nothing at all.
“Possibly the cash failed to exist in the initial location or the money arrived as a result of straw contributions,” O’Brien said at the time of the indictment. He said investigators interviewed four of the five donors. “None of these men and women experienced that kind of money. The entire factor was a fiction.”
Editor’s be aware: This edition has been up to date to proper the potential sentencing penalty.
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Jordan Laird is a criminal justice reporter at the Columbus Dispatch. You can reach her at [email protected]. You can comply with her on Twitter at @LairdWrites.
This post initially appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Male with Columbus electricity ballot evaluate responsible of false marketing campaign report