It took a man with a conscience to expose bribe

COLUMBUS, Ohio — In the federal complaint that accuses Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four allies of engineering a $60 million bribery scheme, few people come out looking good. Tyler Fehrman, though, is one of them.

Fehrman, a Columbus political consultant listed as “CHS 1” in the complaint, alerted the FBI in September 2019 after claiming his friend Matt Borges, an ex-Ohio Republican Party chair who is charged in the case, offered him $15,000 to provide inside information about the campaign to hold a referendum repealing House Bill 6. Householder pushed through the bill, a billion-dollar nuclear plant bailout, with massive financial help from FirstEnergy Corp., the beneficiary of the measure.

Fehrman later wore a wire at the FBI’s behest, recording conversations with Borges that later became a significant part of the federal case against Borges, Householder, and three others.

Fehrman, whose identity was revealed Thursday by the Toledo Blade, agreed to talk with cleveland.com about his experience in helping federal authorities expose the scheme.

Read more: https://www.limaohio.com/news/419744/it-took-a-man-with-a-conscience-to-expose-bribe