CINCINNATI — New information emerged Thursday at the trial of previous Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder on the usage of the state airplane arranged to bring state legislators back to Columbus to vote on the now-tainted nuclear bailout legislation at the heart of Ohio’s biggest ever corruption case.
Text messages provided to jurors in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati, where Householder and lobbyist Matt Borges are dealingwith racketeering charges in an declared $60 million bribery plan, included Householder informing a group of legislators who were out of town at an occasion that the airplane was coming to get them.
Michael Dowling, FirstEnergy’s since-fired vice president for external affairs, then appeared in the text messages to revel in the aircraft’s procurement on behalf of a expense the Akron-based energy business c