5-30-25 Bill Cunningham Show

lawyer with Porter Wright. It's done about everything you can in politics and in practicing law. Has been a veteran of the Peace Corps in the US Army Reserve, was on city Council, got a couple of coffee on city council about twenty twenty as the corruption scandal was proliferating. It's also been a prosecutor and in a criminal defense attorney and more. And Steve Gooden, welcome again to the

Bill Cunningham Show. And first of all, Steve, all the headlines locally and around the nation is how could this happen? How could pg Sittenfeld, a registered card carrying member of the Democratic Party, all of a sudden have inroads into the Trump administration. Out of nowhere he gets a full complete partner. I have it here in front of me. Explain that to the American people.

that's clearly a big part of it. He had one of the thousand hour, thousand dollars an hour law firms in DC working on his appeals, and one of those lawyers went right into the Trump Civil Division of the Justice Department. So that's certainly didn't hurt. But we also know that Trump rightfully so feels that he was wrongly prosecuted by overreaching prosecutors during his time out of office, and that certainly probably has colored his view of who

should get pardoned. There have been several other folks going back to Blagoyevitch on his first term, who he felt well even were Democrats, but he felt were the victim of politically motivated prosecution. So between those two things, none of us should really surprise anybody.

was the US attorney for the Washington DC area. He couldn't get confirmed because the Senator tallis and so Ed Martin now is in charge of pardons, and the lawyers hired heard by PG Sittenfeld have great inroads into Ed Martin and those who actually recommend for the pardons. I would think Donald Trump has never met PG Sittenfeld, couldn't identify him in a lineup, but somebody said close to Donald Trump this guy was a victim of government corruption,

much like a few others in the Tri State. I'm going to ask you about Larry Householder and Matt Borch's here in a minute. But PG Sentenfeld had to play the game. He still has almost a million dollars in campaign money he can give away to other candidates or to run himself if that's the case. But it's kind of odd that a liberal Democrat who I would imagine never voted for Donald Trump, would never vote for Donald Trump, probably doesn't like Donald Trump, and everything about Donald Trump

is using Donald Trump for personal benefit. Can you smell when I'm cooking?

And I mean there were some really negative, tough things, you know, that he said over the years, but you know, you know, you know, like there's an old saying there's no permanent to friends or no permanent enemies in politics, and here really the stars aligned. And another piece of the two is most of the folks Trump has pardoned tend to be on the right side of the political aisle. So it probably I can imagine people around Trump saying, look, you're going to have to put some Democrats in the

mix here too, so it doesn't look overtly political. So he probably benefited from that. There was a certain amount of just luck actually in being a progressive Democrat. So it maybe, you know, takes away the argument that these are all just blatantly political pardons because he partnered a lot of other folks too, with similar cases and different things.

that PG sitting Feld's conviction was. It was played yesterday by Karen Johnson again the key parts of the FBI, and PG says, you know, this isn't a quid pro quo we can't do a quid pro quo, etc. Then the checks were delivered and I made the comment I found it hard to believe that criminalizing politics is something we should do anyway. But you told me off the air that you actually attended the trial and many times what happened inside the courtroom is different than the media

accounts of what happened inside the courtroom. And he told me off the air, you probably would have convicted him.

But that key piece of testimony, and actually that recorded telephone call between he and in Duke Way, who was working as a developer, you could just feel it in the room when they played it that the jury did not like it. And it really is pretty hard to

get around. I mean, they are discussing political fundraising and the approval of this project at the Convention centerarya there on Elm Street at the same time, and there was a moment where PG the line that I think got him convicted, which is when he says I want this money,

I want these contributions. He said, I don't want to be in a position where I love you but can't and basically saying, look, you know, you know, there's a couple of ways to read it, but the most common sense way to read it, and you could tell the jury in the moment the way they were reading it was if you don't pay me, I'm not going to push your project through. So it was anyone who's tried a case to a jury knows that there are just certain things that played differently in a jury and in

a courtroom, and they do out in public. And it was the air went out of the room that day, and it was very clear he was getting convicted to something right there in the moment. It was during COVID too. It was fascinating because the jurors all were wearing masks, but you could see it in their eyes, like, God, that's terrible. That's exactly the worst thing we think about with politicians, it's what we assume is going on behind

the scenes. You're talking about campaign contributions in this project in the same breath, and you're clearly linking them, and that gets you into the quid pro quo area. But that said, I think his whole defense was, Hey, you know, it's first Amendment. Politicians should be allowed to talk like this. But if that's the case, they need to amend the law right now. With the law, the federal statute very clear that this kind of quid pro quo thing, that

particular piece is illegal. And I think if the way that jury was charged, I think I would have had a hard time saying he was not guilty.

sound by FBI agents posing as developers. They were wind dying in pocket lining Jeff Pastor and taking cash, and Tomi Denard shook down Tom Gableman, who was just relieve of his duties on the Banks project with cash. And Tom Gableman is an ethical guy. First thing, idiot was contact the FBI. They wired up Tom Gableman. And so how come pg Sittenfeld was treated differently than Jeff Pastor and Tomayoa Denard when he came to a pardon? Is it the lawyers didn't hire the right lawyers.

Both the Pastor and Dinard kept the dialects. I mean, the testimony was that they were and they both played guilty to it. By the way, we both accepted responsibility, but they both had personal financial problems, which doesn't excuse this. But they took the money, and in fact, Jeff took the money, our pastor took the money from the same group that was trying to set up sit and Felt Sittenfeld. However,

he didn't keep the money. These were all these were all he fell with the Sopranos guys, actually, but they sitt and fell. Every dime of it did go into his campaign account. And that's a big part of his defense too, which is like, look, this wasn't a personal shakedown. Basically was a political shakedown. A political shakedown should be allowed, and I means so that is where the real legal

difference comes in. The jury could have cared less. They thought, you know, the money is the money, and it's for his use in one way or another. And that was a distinction that the jury clearly didn't care about. But that is something that I could see the Justice Department lawyers looking at now as they're looking at this as a pardon and thinking, well, that is a distinction that has some miror.

August a file the Democratic Party has. I think they're nine endorsed candidates, very likely to win the mayor after have Puerival is running against jd Vance's half brother, and jd Vance's half brother thinks the Mega movement would work in the city of Cincinnati. I would say, good luck with that. But do you see PG arising like Jerry Springer who gave the check to a hooker?

got two kids. I think another on the way. From what I'm told, I don't think he has any appetite to get back into politics as an elected official. Look, I mean, I don't really see a path for him either. I mean, the mayor seems to be on the glide path the reelection. I respectfully disagree that all those Democrats are going to get re elected this time. I think there are new issues there, but I don't see Sittenfeld

coming back there. And there really isn't a path with either of the congressional districts right now unless he tried the primary Greg Landsman or something like that. And I just think that if he ever tried to run for office again, the commercials would right themselves and that phone call within Duke Way would come right back in the commercial. I mean, it's a very tough thing to get around, and to the average person, all the legal leaves doesn't

really matter. You know, he was on a phone call talking about campaign contributions in exchange for supporting a development project, and that's a really tough thing.

probably give it to charity. But he cannot withdraw it for personal use. I mean, that is very well established, and you have to file a report every I think almost six months as to where it is. You even have to account for the banker for its interest to the penny. So his ability to do something funny with that is it's just not there. I was totally would I would look for him to do the charitable thing.

and coming from that. I can only imagine what it did to him into his family. So, you know, I don't want to you know, I don't want to sell it for piling on here. You know, he's he's been through a lot. And uh and I think as his career as a public official is over, and I wish you find a way forward, I wish him well. At this point, that's all you can say.

present it to the grand jury. If she does not firmly believe she can get a conviction a trial, she should not present it at all. What is your sense, assuming there is a non true bill, given there's no indictment of the police officer, are you worried about shall I say, civil unrest?

been cleared at this point. I do know some bigger cities and jurisdictions now present every officer involved shooting to the grand jury just as a matter of course, even if they think there's no choice or no chance of an indictment, And if that's going to be the new policy here, they need to announce that and treat everyone the same. So I really feel to this officer right now and his family who are sitting in limbo right

now wondering if they're going to be indicted. But I do think that enough time has elapsed, and I think there's so many sensitivities around this, and I do think police community relations are in a better place. I will be surprised if we have more than a few scattered protests. Knock on wood. I hope and pray that it doesn't turn into another situation like we had back in two thousand and one. I don't believe the facts are there, but you know, we won't know until we know.

what happens. But Steve Gooden, once again, thanks for coming on the Bill Cunningham Show. And Steve, you're a great American.

The weather's great there by the way, and they need a couple wins. They're uh one game under five hundred, about ready to Marsch for glory. We'll see what happens down the road and heading toward the All Star break, et cetera. The discussions I had with Steve Gooden were very illustrative of a difficulty that any new prosecutor has. And we have a new one on the line with Connie Pillach. I've reached out to her and she's going to join me when the decision is made to indict

or not indict the Cincinnati Police officer. And I can give you, I can't give any inroads whatsoever. This person did not know exactly what was occurring, but I knew do know a couple things, and that is that the grand jury presentation would be somewhat brief. Unlike many other offenses, there may be two or three in uniform cops chasing those desperadoes, those car thieves, and then there's the one cop that actually did the shooting. And then there's only one.

I understand there's only one videotape. There's not two or three or four. So there's one videotape and you've seen it maybe one hundred times, and that lasted total of about six seconds. The critical part lasted less than two seconds. The four defendants, the three defenders Torell Austin and de Anthony Bullocks and Sincere Grigsby eighteen and nineteen years old, all had extensive previous criminal records and they went one direction,

as Ryan Hinton won a different direction. And when the matters presented before the grand jury, you're going to have essentially the coroner's report that indicated that the fatal shot was fired about three inches below the left armpit and exited out the sternum and tore the heart apart, and there was another bullet that went into the left side of the clavical and launched himself on the back of

the neck. The coroner, doctor Lastmi some Marco, said that did not indicate that that shot came from the rear. That possibly probably as Ryan Hinton was shot and his body immediately reacted to his heart having a bullet go through at a high rate of speed, he instinctively turned to the right, which caused the second bullet to make it look as if it entered the back when it didn't. She said to me, and she said to you, and she said to everyone. He was shot in the side.

It was not a backshot. And so there are some who want to make this worse than what it is for political purposes and to make money out of the deal. And I get that completely. I'm a lawyer. I understand that the reality is that one person was in charge of this shooting, and that was Ryan Hinton. So, as Steve Goodin said, he is somewhat surprised at this point that the officer has not yet been cleared. It's been

almost thirty days since it took place. In fact, four weeks ago it happened, and the relevant part took about

two seconds and Ryan Hinton is dead. I think after the murder the next day of Larry Henderson, Deputy Sheriff Henderson, that there was a sense that the so called community that may want to write and commit acts of violence and relationship to this the airs out of the bubble and there's not a sense, sadly because of Larry's death, that there's much of a sense of injustice happening if the officer is not indicted, and of course he should

not be indicted. However, the prosecutor can indict a ham Sandwich if he or she wants to, and I don't think that's the case here. You may recall about ten days after the event, I had on Connie Pillach with me and she said she'd seen nothing at that point to indicate the police officer committed a crime. And by that point she did not have, by the way, the coroner's report yet, but she did have the videotape that

was available to all to see. That is the key piece of evidence, and nothing in the corner's report which throw any shade on the belief that the officer had a perception that his life was in jeopardy when he fired the shot. The fatal shot that killed Ryan Hinton, who by the way, just turned eighteen about ten days before, and in other grand juries. In these kinds of cases, there are some local county prosecutors that clear the officers without presenting it to the grand jury, and there's some

that presented to the grand jury. As a matter of policy. Every time, I'm thinking the prosecutor Mike Moser, good friend of Richard K. Jones and Butler County, and he said, and my pace and my policy is to always present it to the grand jury and then instruct them as to the law. I might bring a different Common Police Court judge to instruct the grand juries to the law, and from that the jurors know what my feeling is

on the matter and how to proceed. And in fact, the prosecutors under an ethical duty to only present for indictment if the prosecutor believes quote, that there is a likelihood of success at trial, which is different than probable cause. So for a prosecutor to present this case and seek an indictment, it would have to mean that Connie Pillage believed there was a likelihood of success. By that, I mean a conviction of murder of Cincinnati police at trial.

I don't think a reasonable person can look at this and say anything other then there's a likelihood of being found not guilty at trial, just the opposite of what is required, and so an experienced prosecutor, if you present it to the grand jury, they must be led to a defined result that you desire. In previous police shootings in Hamilton County, there have been at least two, maybe three in the last six months. Neither were presented to

the grand jury by Connie Pillage. She didn't present either case. I had her on that one case that happened an I seventy five might have been an Evendale officer, or it might have been spring Down. I'm not sure who killed someone, she said. I did not firmly believe that the officer doing the shooting and killing that immigrant committed an offense, so I didn't present it. And there still is an opportunity for her not to present this case either under the idea that let's let some more time

go by and see what happens. I think that, in all fairness to my respect for law enforcement, the chief of Police Thiji, made a blunder, a mistake within twenty four hours speaking about the barrel of the gun pointed at the officer and a bullet went in the chest and came out the back. In this case, Ryan Hinton was facing the officer, shot in the chest and the boy came out the back, and the evidence seems to indicate that did not take place. And I think in

the future maybe she'll be a bit more circumspect. She should answer questions by saying, I have to wait to comment on this until I get the coroner's report and gather more evidence and more information.

in other cases she's not presented it. Now, when I talked to Rob's Sanders, as you know the Kent County prosecutor, he seldom presents to the grand jury in Kenton County a indictment of a police officer unless he wants an indictment. He said, Look, I'm not going to risk a grand jury who has no experience in these matters coming up with a indictment that's not justified. That I can't take

the court. See, the law requires the prosecutor to present to the grand jury on any case, but especially a police shooting case, only if the prosecutor believes there's a likelihood here or she can get a conviction of trial. I think no one can claim that the police officer in Cincinnati would likely be convicted of murder of Ryan Hinton in this environment.

the grand jury. And the subpoenas came from a grand jury. As you know, in Hamlet County, there's always one grand jury working and their citizens picked from the voter rules, just like trial jury members are picked. You're in the you show up for report your duty and on a Monday and you're assigned to a courtroom or you're assigned to the grand jury. You go upstairs. There's nine persons on a grand jury, and to get an indictment, you need seven of the nine to vote a true it's

called true bill and or report a nobill. And they're gathering evidence in order to present to a grand jury sometime in the near future, within a week or ten days. And at that point, as I understand it, the Prosecutor's office will speak to the city police and a Charmaine McGuffey to have a staging area for police officers to prepare in case it is a no bill which means no indictment. In case a few people want to act

up a little bit, which happens. And when I see signs like one down, many to go, a father defending his family, referring to Rodney Hinton the father. There is some sense that there may be some civil unrest, which I think, as a great American, will not take place.

justified or not justified to shoot. You may have seen the videotape I may put it on my x account and the Columbus area there was a car was pulled over for a traffic violation and the passenger jumps out of the car and begins running. A police officer begins running. Also, unbeknownst to the police officer, the person running had a gun, and as he was running, he took his right hand, stuck it under his left armpit, and fired shots at the police, hitting two police officers from a distance of

twenty five to fifty feet. Both officers one was in critical condition, one in serious Both now are going to survive. It shows the danger when someone steals something his arm with a gun unbeknownst by the police and they begin to run. Fountain Square tastes to Cincinnati. About four days ago. One of the he's a I think the guy's name was Jabari Johnson, who is twenty three years old, was breaking into cars all over Court Street and Vine Street in order to find guns and god knows what else.

He was identified by police as possible a suspect. They asked him to yell at him on Fountain Scure, Hey, let me talk to you for a moment. He starts running. At that point, did those two Cincinnati cops know he had a gun? Absolutely not. One of the officers pulled out a taser in order to tase the guy. Jabari Johnson stops, turns around, pulls out a gun from his waistband is prepared to kill a police officer on Fountain Square as the taser think God takes effect about half

the time a taser does not take effect. The officers did not know who he had a gun.

as more or less a liberal Democrat. She wants to tell her core constituency base, well, look, it wasn't me. It was the grand jury of Hamlin County, and she can manipulate the grand jury to a defined result. I had one prosecutor tell me once that if you have three or four strong members of a grand jury listening to evidence, whether inan dit or not, and they're heading one direction, and you don't want me to go that direction.

You say, look, we're going to reconvene this grand jury to a different point, and then we need different we need some more evidence, and then get a different grand jury to hear the evidence. There's all kinds of ways the prosecutor can can have the grand jury dance to its tune and do what the prosecutor wants to do. And in this case, I hope the case in a sense is not presented that the officer by this point should have been freed. He's on desk duty as we speak.

And if the case is presented in the next week or two or three, and I pray to God there's a no bill, because if there is an indictment for murder in this circumstance, I don't see any cop ever chasing anybody ever again anywhere when they could have a gun and turn around and shoot him like happening Columbus to those two officers, and almost for a split second

happened at the Taste on Fountain Square. And if anything, this officer should get our thanks and a medal for courage for standing up to this because Ryan Hinton and this gang of thieves Austin Bullocks and Grigsby were the ones responsible for the circumstances that led ultimately to the murder of Larry Henderson. There is a break and proximate cause you can't charge these three with Larry Henderson's murder.

But if they didn't do what they did, Ryan Hinton would have not done what he did, which means Larry would be alive today. Let's continue with more and uh if the line becomes available. Five one, three, seven, four, nine, seven thousand Reds Baseball kicks off about twenty minutes or so. First pitch about three twenty heading toward I can't believe June is almost here, and after Memorial Day it's Rainy's gonna have a great weekend. Spend it with time, spend

your time with friends and family. But those officers I speak to is deputy sheriff CEOs. Federal authorities would be shocked if this officer was indicted for murder under this fact pattern. Let's continue twelve fifty six HOMEO Reds. Here's radio seven hundred WOLW today.

and then taking fifty percent discount. They were putting millions of dollars of cash in their pocket selling the cards, which is indicative of what Doge was doing. And the one rub for Elon Musk is he donated all this time and money and also it appears costing him billions

of dollars because the leftists came after him hard. And he made the comment the other day that instead of cutting federal spending, the Republicans are increasing federal spending, which is true, and it's my view that if you cannot cut federal spending in this environment with Donald Trump in his last term only term as president, along with Republicans in the House in the Senate, there's never going to

be a cut in federal spending. Despite the protestations of federal workers and also shutting down various pieces of foreign aid which needed to be extracted. The amount of money to be saved is somewhat paltry compared to the spending of the federal government. For example, if you would take the Department of Defense, which is going up and spending fifteen percent, the president probably deserves it. One hundred and

fifty billion dollar increase in the Defense department. We're going to spend about one point one trillion dollars in defense, fifteen percent increase. Take the Defense Department plus interest on the national debt, just the interest, which is over a trillion dollars a year. Add on top of that Medicare, Medicaid, those four programs, and there's no cuts to Medicaid whatsoever. At the bottom line, it's making getting rid of waste, fraud,

and abuse. Absolutely, is it going to change the trajectory of Medicaid spending goes to the increase of doctors and hospital fees. No, So you take Defense, take interest on the national debt, take Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Those items are untouched, in fact increasing under Donald Trump's budget, and that that represents about seventy percent of federal spending.

So my good friend and your Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin kind of laid out what's been happening rather illustrative. He made the point that during the eight years of Barack Hussein Obama, Obama averaged about nine hundred and ten billion of deficits every year, nine hund and ten billion, which was ridiculous in peacetime, nine hundred and ten billion. Who borrowd every dollar of that? And then after Trump's first three years before COVID hit, Trump averaged eight hundred

and ten billion a year. And then when COVID hit, the deficit in one year was three trillion dollars and one year, So then Biden takes over, and of course Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, they said, a hell with any caps on anything, We're going to grossly increase and spend four trillion dollars more money. So under under Joe Biden, the deficit by itself went up eight trillion dollars, taking

into account COVID. Under Trump, the deficit spending and the accumulated debt won up another eight trillion dollars, and under Obama that was eight trillion dollars. So Johnson's making the point, how about returning to the spending of the year twenty twenty, is that a real sacrifice. Well, in twenty twenty, the total federal spending was four point seven trillion dollars. The physical year starting October first of this year is going

to be seven trillion. That's under Trump and the Republicans. So from four point seven trillion in twenty twenty one trillion and twenty twenty five, we're gonna borrow now well north of two trillion dollars to fund our spending habits. And we can't stop spending as far as income tax

collections of people like this segment, et cetera. The taxpayers have given to the federal government five trillion dollars of our money in the year twenty twenty four to twenty twenty five, five trillion dollars irs, terras, whatever it is, fees, and they can't stay within that. The Republicans are gonna

borrow two trillion dollars. More so, if we want, if we simply said, whatever we spend in the year twenty twenty one, which wasn't exactly one hundred years ago, twenty twenty one, we're going to spend that amount of money in twenty twenty five we would have a three hundred billion dollar surplus instead of a two trillion dollar deficit. If we cannot stop spending now with the Trumpster and Michael Johnson and John fun and all this going on,

we're never going to be able to do it. In which case, the deficit accumulated debt right now in the nation is thirty seven trillion. When Trump leaves office, it's going to be forty five trillion dollars. The interest on that will be two trillion dollars a year, which means the interest on the payment of national debt will double between now in the next eight years. Double Where does

the money come from? And then you add on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense interest on the national debt that's going to be seventy seven percent of the federal budget. We can't live like this and survive as a nation. And if it doesn't happen now and not going to happen, and seemingly it's not going to happen, Ron Johnson said Coot, I have nothing but respect for Speaker Johnson, understand and sympathize with the challenge she has. I have nothing but support

for what Trump is trying to do. But this is unsustainable. It'd be interesting if the CNN's of the world in ABC News would deal with that issue. Whether Republican or Democrat. Everyone spends way past the ability of our economy to grow and have a balanced budget. Take out twenty twenty one budget. That's what we're going to spend. We have a three hundred billion dollar surplus. That's not the way things work. Segment, your comments.