CINCINNATI — Cincinnati taxpayers will likely spend more than $152,000 on the salaries and health insurance for suspended City Council members Jeff Pastor and PG Sittenfeld through the end of this year, while both await trial on corruption charges.

State law allows Pastor and Sittenfeld, whom the FBI arrested following separate grand jury indictments last November, to collect full salaries until their cases are resolved in court or their council terms expire on Jan. 3, 2022.

“The bottom line for Cincinnati voters is they’re paying for nothing right now,” said University of Cincinnati political science professor David Niven. “They’re paying for our commitment to justice, which doesn’t tangibly get them anything in terms of work from two employees of the people.”

Eric Clajus

The city also pays for the salaries and health benefits of the two interim council members who temporarily replaced Pastor and Sittenfeld – Steve Goodin and Liz Keating through the end of the year.

In November voters elected Keating to keep her seat on council. She will be returning to her own seat in January. Voters did not elect Goodin.

“It is a lot of money,” Niven said. “It’s a burden on Cincinnati to be paying for two extra council members who literally can’t do anything.”

The city pays council members $5,054 per month and contributes an additional $483 per month to those who have a family health insurance plan. That amounts to $11,074 per month, or $132,891 per year, combined paid to two council members who each have family insurance plans.

Taxpayers also paid Sittenfeld and Pastor’s salary for more than six weeks in late 2020 after their arrests.

Lot Tan

Last year the FBI arrested Pastor on Nov. 10, 2020 and then Sittenfeld on Nov. 19 for allegedly taking thousands in bribes from developers in unrelated cases.

Days after Pastor and Sittenfeld’s arrests, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced he would initiate suspension proceedings against them with the Ohio Supreme Court.

Several council members and Mayor John Cranley called on Pastor and Sittenfeld to resign. Instead, both voluntarily agreed to be suspended, which means they keep receiving paychecks.

“You’re innocent until proven guilty. I think they both stepped away from council so it wouldn’t taint the future decisions,” said Sean Comer, Xavier University’s director of government relations.

WCPO file

But taxpayers may see it for what it is: they have been paying double for two council seats for more than a year.

“Is it fair to taxpayers? Nobody is going to say yes,” Comer said. “Nobody wants their money to go to somebody who is corrupt, who they think has done something illegal.”

Pastor’s attorney, Ben Dusing, said it’s only fair that he keeps getting paid while he awaits trial, which is set for May 2, 2022 in U.S. District Court.

“Given that Mr. Pastor was forcibly displaced from counsel and, if proven innocent, well thank goodness that the law afforded for his continued provision for his family,” Dusing said.

Sittenfeld has been adamant since his arrest that he will fight the charges at trial, which is set for June 20, 2022. Both men will face trial with separate judges and separate juries.

Phil Didion

“PG is innocent and for nearly ten years he served the people of Cincinnati faithfully,” said Sittenfeld’s attorney, Charlie Rittgers. “He is fighting the unfounded charges - and the presumption of innocence is another fairness which the people have said he deserves, just as each of them does.”

The corruption scandal at City Hall began in February 2020 when the FBI arrested former Councilwoman Tamaya Dennard.

A week after her arrest, Dennard resigned, so her city paychecks stopped.

“She resigned, she didn’t take a suspension,” Niven said. “She didn’t take the salary because I don’t think she saw a path forward that would exonerate her.”

She is serving an 18-month prison term after pleading guilty to honest services wire fraud, admitting that she took $15,000 for her vote on a development deal at The Banks.

“Pastor and Sittenfeld are in very different situations (than Dennard) even though they are charged with similar crimes, the details are very, very different,” Niven said.

Due to the complexity of their cases, and the backlog of cases in the federal court system due to COVID, legal experts say it was obvious that any trial for Pastor and Sittenfeld would be more than a year away. And long after their terms on council had expired.

“Certainly, you could make a case that once it was obvious that their case was not going to be set until well after their time on council, that there was a moment that they could have said, ‘I should just resign. I should not continue to collect a check for something that I’m not doing, that I can’t do,’” Comer said.

What could the city spend $152,000 on if it weren’t paying for two extra salaries?

• Hire one and a half new police officers or firefighters.
• Hire nearly two new health center nurses.
• Pay 71 percent of the cost of a new garbage packer truck.
• Buy one and a half snowplows
• Purchase at least three police cruisers
• Add more than 500 pedestrian road signs
• Complete 69 new painted cross walks each with two curb ramps

WCPO

In the city’s most recent capital budget, council voted to spend relatively the same amount as Pastor and Sittenfeld’s salaries on:

• $168,000 Gas light repair and replacements.
•  $150,000 Real Time Crime Center camera program.
• $125,000 Parking meter replacement.
• $125,000 Health center facilities and repairs.
• $150,000 Paddock Road safety improvements.

If Pastor and Sittenfeld are convicted, the city could go to court to recoup the salaries it paid to them over the past year. But it’s likely a judge will also order both men to pay restitution as part of their sentencing, as was done with Dennard. Which means they may not have enough money to repay city taxpayers for those paychecks if convicted, Niven said.

Despite that, Niven said it is still symbolically important for the city to try to recoup those salaries, if either Sittenfeld or Pastor is convicted

Pastor will face a jury with his co-defendant Tyran Marshall, who is accused of funneling bribes to Pastor through an LLC. The FBI arrested Pastor last November on charges that he took $55,000 in bribes from two developers during his first term on council.

WCPO Staff

In Sittenfeld’s case, the FBI alleges that he promised to deliver council votes supporting a development deal at the former Convention Place Mall in exchange for four $5,000 contributions to his political action fund. Sittenfeld allegedly accepted four more checks in fall 2019 for a total of $40,000 in bribes.

These back-to-back trial in May and June will be “challenging and painful,” for the city, Comer said, because so many political consultants, staffers, donors, and developers could be called to testify.

“A defense is not only going to call in every political figure in Cincinnati, at least symbolically, for their part in this,” Niven said. “It’s going to call in every donor, everybody who had business with the city, and every intermediary, campaign staff, consultant and hangar-on.”

“The main defense here is going to be - this is how politics works,” Niven said.

CINCINNATI — Suspended Cincinnati City Councilman PG Sittenfeld will face a jury on June 20, 2022, setting up back-to-back public corruption trials that could bring national attention to the Queen City for two months next summer.

U.S. District Court Judge Douglas Cole set Sittenfeld’s trial date during a 10-minute court hearing on Tuesday. Attorneys predict the case could take three to four weeks to present to a jury.

“I’m eager to move forward and I’m very confident that when the full facts come out, I’ll be completely exonerated,” Sittenfeld said, as he entered the courthouse. “We’re going to fight this to the very end.”

Sittenfeld is the third council member the FBI arrested on public corruption charges last year. Former Councilwoman Tamaya Dennard is serving an 18-month prison sentence after she pleaded guilty to honest services wire fraud.

Suspended Councilman Jeff Pastor faces a jury on May 2, 2022, with his co-defendant Tyran Marshall, who is accused of funneling bribes to Pastor through an LLC. The FBI arrested Pastor last November on charges that he took $55,000 in bribes from two developers during his first term on council.

In a May interview, Pastor’s attorney, Ben Dusing, blamed the long trial delay on a backlog caused by the COVID-required closures.

But one of Sittenfeld’s attorneys, Charles H. Rittgers, said the nine-month delay may be necessary to allow them to resolve evidenciary disputes with prosecutors and give them time to review documents and interview witnesses.

Sittenfeld and Pastor’s cases will be heard by different judges and different juries. Rittgers did not believe that Sittenfeld’s trial would be impacted by whatever the jury decides weeks ahead in Pastor’s case.

“The facts, as I understand it, as laid out by the prosecution, are totally different from the facts in PG’s case,” Rittgers said. “My understanding is that there was financial gain on behalf of Pastor … PG did not personally gain anything financially.”

Sittenfeld, a Democrat, had been considered the front-runner to win this year’s Cincinnati mayoral race until the FBI arrested him in November. A 20-page indictment charged Sittenfeld with two counts of honest services wire fraud, two counts of bribery and two counts of attempted extortion.

Federal officials alleged that Sittenfeld promised to deliver council votes in 2018 supporting a development deal at the former Convention Place Mall in exchange for four $5,000 contributions to his political action fund. Sittenfeld allegedly accepted four more checks in fall 2019 for a total of $40,000 in bribes.

“This is not a case about personal gain – the government does not allege that money went into Mr. Sittenfeld’s pockets,” Rittgers wrote in a motion to dismiss all charges. “Rather, the indictment alleges nothing more than that Mr. Sittenfeld engaged in the kind of routine conduct of elected officials in cities, counties and states across the nation.”

But prosecutors say what Sittenfeld did is a crime.

“It is not a defense to bribery that the public official would have done the official act anyway, even without payment; and receiving bribe payments through a PAC is no less corrupt,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Singer wrote in a recent court filing. “These actions are not … ‘everyday American democratic activity’—this is bribery.”

What the jury believes about Sittenfeld’s political fund, which is named the Progress and Growth PAC, could determine his fate.

CINCINNATI — A Warren County judge has dismissed a defamation lawsuit that Sycamore Township Trustee Tom Weidman filed against developer Christopher Hildebrant in February, saying its claims are barred by Ohio’s one-year statute of limitations.

The dismissal comes after taxpayers shelled out $15,000 to respond to the lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, Weidman alleged Hildebrant created a “fake email” in 2011 to falsely accuse Weidman of soliciting bribes. He also claimed he wasn’t aware of the email until state investigators asked him about it in November 2020. Weidman’s lawsuit was filed less than one year after he became aware of the email.

But Warren County Common Pleas Judge Donald Oda ruled the one-year time limit applies to the date the email was first published. That was December 20, 2011, when Hildebrant and Weidman agree the email was shared with a third party.

“The plaintiff argues … the statute of limitation does not begin to run until November 18, 2020, when plaintiff discovered the alleged defamatory email and suffered the injury,” Judge Oda wrote. “The Court does not find this argument to be persuasive."

Hildebrant's attorney said Judge Oda got it right. Weidman said he will appeal the ruling because it is based on legal precedent that’s over 100 years old.

"This case allows a confidential publication of a defamatory statement to start the running of the statute of limitations," Weidman said. "Thus, I can be defamed in confidence, and then have my case barred ... this is bad law."

Weidman said Judge Oda applied the precedent correctly, but he wants an appeals court to change the precedent.

“Many other states agree with my position," he said. "We intend to appeal the decision in an effort to bring Ohio into line with more modern reasoning on this subject.”

The legal controversy erupted in April, when Hildebrant’s company sued Weidman in Hamilton County. In that lawsuit, Morelia GroupDE LLC alleged Weidman retaliated against the company in 2019 because Hildebrant refused to pay Weidman bribes between 2009 and 2012.

As the WCPO 9 I-Team researched that case, it learned of Weidman’s defamation case in Warren County and an investigation by the Ohio Auditor’s office into Hildebrant’s bribery allegations in 2020. The auditor’s investigation ended after Hildebrant refused to answer questions about the 2011 email, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

The I-Team subsequently learned from four sources that Hildebrant is “Cooperating Witness 2” in the City Hall corruption case against former Councilman Jeff Pastor.

"Mr. Hildebrant is pleased that the Warren County Court of Common Pleas correctly ruled that Mr. Weidman's frivolous defamation claims are barred," said Chad Ziepfel, a Taft law firm partner who represents Hildebrant. "The suit filed by Morelia Group against Mr. Weidman will proceed."

The next step in the Hamilton County case is an October 4 hearing before Common Pleas Judge Terry Nestor on Weidman’s motion to dismiss.

In the meantime, Sycamore Township has spent about $15,000 responding to subpoenas and record requests because of the case, said Trustee Tom James.

“So far, it has cost us about $12,000 in attorneys fees,” James said. “It also cost us another $2,500 to $3,000 in IT fees and administrative fees to handle the searches we had to do of township records.”

James and Trustee Jim LaBarbara voted to hire an outside law firm from Dayton to handle its response to Weidman’s defamation case because Weidman’s attorney subpoenaed the township’s law director as a witness.

It’s one of the many quirks of the case that caused the defamation case to be costly. Another involves records sought by Weidman that Weidman already had.

“For whatever reason, he uses his personal email for public business,” James said. “So, we had to ask him to produce things that we could produce back to him.”

A trial date has been set for suspended Cincinnati City Council member Jeff Pastor. Pastor is accused of taking $55,000 as well as a trip to Miami in bribes for votes on development deals. His trial is now slated for May 2, 2022. The trial is expected to last four weeks.The 36-year-old Republican was arrested on federal bribery, extortion, money laundering and fraud charges last fall.The indictment alleged Pastor asked for and received $55,000 in bribes, money in exchange for his votes on Council for two development projects starting in August of 2018 into February of 2019.According to investigators, Tyran Marshall, his business partner, was the alleged middleman in what was essentially a pay-to-play scheme.