Who is Neil Clark and what is he accused of in the Ohio Statehouse bribery case

TIPPS CLARK

Paul Tipps, left, and Neil Clark, lobbyists in favor of placing slot machines at racetracks, pose in their office Thursday, May 27, 2004, in Columbus, Ohio.AP

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Federal authorities said a longtime Columbus lobbyist became Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder’s fixer in recent years, concocting clever ways to ensure that the speaker’s interests were furthered with millions of dollars in dark money under their control.

Neil Clark was an integral and foul-mouthed part of an organization the FBI referred to in court filings as “Householder’s Enterprise.” He’s portrayed as the one with the juice to corral votes to ram through House Bill 6 — the $1.3 billion 2019 bailout of the Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp.‘s nuclear interests — as well as the one developing the schemes to make sure voters didn’t overturn it through a ballot measure.

He was also the one with the wherewithal and knowledge to ensure Householder had millions of dollars of FirstEnergy money at his disposal in secret through the group Generation Now, which Householder used to target his political foes and to strengthen public support for the nuclear bailout, the FBI said.

Agents said Clark benefitted from FirstEnergy’s payments to the “Enterprise,” receiving at least $290,000 in money funneled to Generation Now. All the while, he told people he respected Householder for taking millions from a company and was willing to go to war for them.

“Clark explained that the way politicians get exposed for ‘pay to play’ is through ‘stupidity’ or ‘people who get aggrieved leak it,’” a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday said.

Clark, 67, was one of five people the FBI arrested Tuesday on a racketeering conspiracy charge in what David DeVillers, the U.S. attorney in Columbus, said was “likely the largest bribery, money-laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people in the state of Ohio.” The complaint said FirstEnergy, identified as “Company A,” funneled more than $60 million to Householder and his associates through Generation Now.

Householder was also arrested, and the quintet is free on bond.

Clark’s attorney William Ireland said in a brief phone call that it is the government’s burden to prove that his client was criminally culpable. He said Clark is innocent.

Clark, who owns Grant Street Consultants and was previously a budget director for the Ohio Republican Caucus, is a longtime lobbyist. He has taken on other high-profile clients, including the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow online charter school, the payday lending industry and nursing home industries.

He garnered a reputation as a big talker who makes grand pronouncements — something fellow lobbyist and defendant Matthew Borges referred to as “typical Neil bulls--t” stuff, according to an affidavit written by FBI agent Blane Wetzel. However, Borges noted that Clark’s role as a close Householder advisor was real and defined.

Wetzel portrayed Clark as a profane yet influential politico who knew how to give Householder and his group access to unlimited money through Generation Now while obfuscating the speaker’s involvement.

“Nobody knows the money goes to the Speaker’s account, it is controlled by his people, one of his people, and it’s not recorded,” Clark said to Householder last year, according to the FBI.

More importantly, Wetzel said Clark was Householder’s fixer and stand-in. He also referred to himself as the speaker’s “hit man” who does the “dirty s--t,” the agent wrote.

Those actions, according to the FBI, included getting legislators to support the bill.

They also included spending $450,000 in a single day to hire 15 signature collection firms so they had a conflict and could not collect names for a proposed ballot measure to overturn HB6, agents said.

The lobbyist was also involved in schemes to bribe workers to stop collecting signatures and provide inside information to Householder allies, the FBI said.

Above all, the plan was to make sure that HB6 stick. It was important to make sure voters did not overturn the bill because it would set a bad precedent for the rest of Householder’s tenure as speaker, he and others said at a dinner club meeting in 2019.

“It sends the message to everyone else … if you attack a member, we’re going to f-----g rip your d--k off,” Clark said.

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