Free Republic

Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison for his role in the largest corruption scandal in state history and taken immediately into custody, a judge declaring that "the court and the community's patience with Larry Householder has expired."

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) - The case for a couple charged with ongoing abuse at the Circle of Hope Girls Ranch was back in front of a Cedar County judge Monday. Boyd and Stephanie Householder face 100 charges of abuse combined, including molestation and statutory rape related to their operation of the boarding school near Stockton. They have pleaded not guilty. Our cameras are not allowed inside the courtroom. The judge is trying to keep publicity involving this case to a minimum to ensure that the Householders get a fair trial. The Householders were not in court either. Defense attorneys told...

When the owners of the Circle of Hope boarding school in Humansville, Missouri, were arrested last year on more than 100 combined charges of child abuse and neglect, authorities pointed to an unlikely whistleblower: their 31-year-old daughter, Amanda Householder. In a new lawsuit filed in Polk County Court, Householder alleges that her parents, Boyd and Stephanie Householder, routinely abused her and her younger brother, beating them with golf clubs and a leather whip and force-feeding them until they vomited. She also alleges the couple abused the teenage girls entrusted to their care at Circle of Hope and forced her to...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KY3) - The Missouri Attorney General’s Office filed numerous charges of abuse against the operators of the Circle of Hope Girls Ranch in Cedar County. Authorities arrested Boyd and Stephanie Householder. They remain jailed in the Vernon County Jail in Nevada, Mo. Attorney Eric Schmitt will detail the case against the Householders at noon news conference on Wednesday. You can watch that news conference LIVE here. State investigators removed about two dozen girls in mid-august from the facility outside Humansville. The state along with the Cedar County Prosecutor’s Office began outlining a case against the Householders. Four...

A FirstEnergy customer on Monday filed what could become a class-action lawsuit in an effort to make the electricity company refund customers for rate hikes that resulted from a billion-dollar nuclear bailout now at the center of a corruption scandal. The lawsuit filed by Jacob Smith, a North Royalton homeowner, accuses the Akron-based utility of committing civil racketeering by bribing law Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder to introduce House Bill 6 and then illegally bankrolling a dark-money campaign to pressure legislators into supporting the bill and fending off a ballot initiative to repeal it. The goal of the scheme was...

The founder of a prominent political action committee opposing President Donald Trump’s reelection was arrested on Tuesday in part of a public corruption probe. Matthew Borges, a lobbyist and former chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, was arrested in connection to a year-long $60 million federal bribery scheme. According to prosecutors, Borges and three other lobbyists allegedly conspired with the Republican Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives to secure a $1.3 billion taxpayer bailout for an Ohio-based energy company, FirstEnergy Solutions. Law enforcement officials claim that in exchange for helping FirstEnergy receive the bailout, which was meant to prevent...

CINCINNATI (FOX19) - Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder is under arrest in connection with a $61 million federal bribery case, a source close to the investigation said Tuesday. An FBI spokesman confirmed Tuesday FBI agents are on scene conducting law enforcement activity in the area of Householder’s Glenford Farm in Perry County, and it’s connected to an announcement coming this afternoon from federal officials involving $60 million in bribes paid to a state official and associates. He also confirmed it is connected to an announcement earlier this morning from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio related...

ST. CLAIRSVILLE - Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett told Belmont County Republicans there are problems ahead for the state GOP in 2006 at a fund-raiser this week at Undo's West in St. Clairsville. His words came amid allegations of financial and ethical wrongdoing by some Republican officeholders in Ohio just as the 2006 race for governor begins - and as 2008 presidential campaigns start to take shape. "There are a few people in our party who have abused their trust," Bennett said, making reference to a scandal in which Republican office holders invested state money in rare coins. As...

Columbus - Federal authorities investigating former House Speaker Larry Householder have seized two computers belonging to the House's head of information technology. Scott Borgemenke, chief of staff to House Speaker Jon Husted, said two IRS agents showed up with a subpoena on April 27. The subpoena demanded computer hard drives, backup hard drives, CDs and other storage media for computers assigned since January 2004 to Dusten Kohlhorst, the House's chief IT officer. Borgemenke said he and Jack Christopher, the House's chief legal counsel, turned over one computer that day and a second the following day.

-- A federal grand jury has subpoenaed personnel and payroll records for five current and former House Republican caucus employees as part of its public corruption investigation of former Speaker Larry Householder. Issued March 29, the subpoena requests records on Melissa (Missy) Craddock, the House GOP's executive policy assistant for health and human services, and Dan Baker, a budget analyst. The former House employees whose records were subpoenaed are Dwight Crum, Megan Teeters and Steven Cuckler. Scott Borgemenke, chief of staff for Speaker Jon Husted, said the grand jury's request for records on a sixth person, Tim Mishler, was misdirected....

-- A federal grand jury subpoenaed payroll records, expense accounts and computer hard drives from the Ohio House of Representatives as part of a widening campaign-spending investigation of ex-House Speaker Larry Householder and his top political aides. Dated Feb. 1, the subpoena requests only records involving Householder and former Chief of Staff Brett Buerck. Newly elected Speaker Jon Husted, a Dayton-area Republican, has urged House employees to cooperate with the probe. "We fully complied with the request and turned over documents that same week," said Jack Christopher, legal counsel for the House Republican caucus. The materials included paper records, a...

Dump Householder, Blackwell says Demand is latest round in GOP infighting Tuesday, May 25, 2004 Sandy Theis and Ted Wendling Plain Dealer Bureau Columbus - Ohio's Republican Party chairman should demand that Larry Householder resign as speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives and show contrition for the "political racketeering done on his watch," Secretary of State Ken Blackwell said Monday. Blackwell made his comments in a letter to GOP Chairman Bob Bennett - a letter that inflamed the growing scandal engulfing House Republicans and the infighting afflicting the GOP. The letter followed Plain Dealer reports that federal officials have...