Steve Goodin - Is PG Finally Going To Jail? - podcast episode cover

Steve Goodin - Is PG Finally Going To Jail?

Feb 12, 202520 min
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Speaker 1

Seven thirty one. That was an.

Speaker 2

I just gave it full.

Speaker 3

Don't found him guilty even sixteen in him. Well played Joe Strucker and I seen song bomb for our conversation.

Speaker 1

A sound effect.

Speaker 3

Welcome back to the fIF five Careocy Morning Show from the outstanding law firm Porter Right, Steve Good in our litigation expert Steve. It's always great having you on the show and it's good to be here Brian. Thanks love the music. Yeah, that was awesome, well played Joe Strucker, And on a personal level, thank you for the referral for the will's trust and a state attorney. Steve, we had a really great meeting and uh, it's gonna it's gonna help us out great. So that was that was great.

So count on the lawyers glad to hear. Thank you for Porter right dot com. All right you saw it,

pgs it and fell two to one. Opinion six Circuit Us Court of Appeals said, well, they called it a difficult case, but they allowed the jury to decide the credibility of the witnesses and his intent in soliciting a political action contribution in connection with this chideedam nonduque guy, this real estate development but the dissent highlighted some of the problems with this because political contributions are a form of political participation and they're protected to a large degree,

and the condescent said, this may INCENTIVI I have more more prosecutions. It would be hard to decide. And so I guess, overall, what's your take on this? And do you see it to be problematic that they didn't overturn the conviction.

Speaker 4

Uh?

Speaker 5

No, I don't see it as problematic at all that they didn't overturn the conviction. I mean, look, I was in the unfortunate spot of somebody who lived through a lot of astrama at city Hall. You know, I was appointed to one of the seats, not to the pastor seat after he went to was indicted and ultimately went to jail. So there really was a culture of corruption problem at city Hall, and I think that was what, in their way, the federal prosecutors were trying to address

and trying to get at. And we know it was a very widespread investigation that looked at a lot of different people and ultimately charged three. So I don't have a problem, you know, with that at all. I sat through the trial. I saw about ninety percent of the trial and almost all of the testimony, And in my mind, it was very clear from like the second or third day that the jury was going to convict him of something, and there was just a visceral reaction in the room by the jurors.

Speaker 1

And this was during COVID time. They were wearing.

Speaker 5

Masks and you could still see that they were aghast at some of the testimony.

Speaker 1

The only thing.

Speaker 5

That this court struggled with, and I think the jury didn't struggle with it, but this court did, was this idea that he solicited the funds for the quid pro quote transaction into his political action and didn't keep them personally like the other two did. Denard and Pastor took money personally, they spent the money personally. I think Jess was in cash. No question there that if they changed their votes or positions based on a cash payment personally, that's you know, that's.

Speaker 1

Not a problem. I mean, that's that's a crime. The quid pro quo period in this.

Speaker 5

Case, the idea, the idea that the money went into a political action committee I think gave them some pause. He shares out. Badian says, He's like, look, the line is blurry, but there is a line under current Supreme Court precedent. This is something that is still a quid

pro quo. It's still illegal, and we're going to have to defer to what the jury heard during this almost three week trial and all the witnesses they heard from, and their conclusion that it was a quid pro quo, which I think that was loose in the room for the first couple of days, particularly some of the audio and video recordings of PG and in Duke Way and these FBI agents who are working undercover pretending to be

developers from Nashville. I mean, they got him promising litigation and promising to pressure the poort authority to help them, uh, you know, with the deal, all kinds of things. And and I think the worst part of it is when they offered him a contribution for his help, he actually didded them up and said, no, actually I'd like more. Uh that's that's problematic. And of course every look he's

just soliciting CAMPAI contributions. What I do think is interesting is it is a split decision of these were three Trump appointed judges. It was two to one, and even Eric Murphy. Judge Murphy who was the former Hire Solicitor Brilliant Guy Trump appointee.

Speaker 1

Even though he agreed with h letting.

Speaker 5

The convictionion stand, he all that calls for the Supreme Court to take this up and kind of review this and try to help draw the line a little more clearly. But even he ultimately agreed and said this was a something that needs to be needs to be done.

Speaker 1

So my guess is that.

Speaker 5

They will seek an en Bock hearing of the full Sixth Circuit, and if that is unsuccessful, which it rarely is, I'll probably try to go to the US Supreme Court.

Speaker 3

Yeah, you answered my question I had written down in back, and because I had a listener even asked me that and I said, well, of course he can try. But I'll get the real expert to answer that question, Steve Gooden. I'll hold you over. Got quite a few more questions in connection with this matter, So hang around and we'll

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Speaker 4

Channel nine Weather. We got a winter weather advisor until eleven am. Slick roads, possible snow flurries. Careful out there. Forty for the high today, overnight some rain low of twenty nine. Rainal taper off really early tomorrow morning. We'll have mostly cloudy skies in a high of thirty two, clear overnight for a drop to fourteen and thirty seven on Valentine's Day with clear skies thirty two.

Speaker 1

Right now, Time for track.

Speaker 6

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Speaker 1

And see the talk station.

Speaker 3

I'm pretty what.

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I hear the train of coming, it's rolling around it, and I seen the sunshine since I don't know when I'm stuck and full of prison and time keeps drag you know what, that train keeps roll own.

Speaker 3

There is talk to p Sentfeld whether legal actions from the law firm or Porter right Steve Good and you find him on line at porter right dot com. Need a great litigation attorney or other legal services great place

to stop Steve Good. And a couple more questions, you know, in terms of you're agreeing with the upholding his conviction on appeal rather than inviting additional litigation, which is what what the dissent was kind of in part based on, you know, this is just this is so close to call that we shouldn't uphold it because it's just going to encourage more more politicians to be called under the carpet.

I think it'll have the polar opposite effect. I think it'll force politicians to keep the bar really really high and make sure they avoid anything that might be construed ever as a quid pro quo.

Speaker 1

I think that's the idea behind the prosecution. Brian.

Speaker 5

It's like if you you know, and I've worked in a US attorney's office, and what they typically try to do is focus on deterrence. Now, like, one of the worst kept secrets in the legal community is that the federal prosecutors have actually pretty limited resources, and when they go after an area of crime, you know, they have to you know, make examples and try to pick a high series of high profile cases and an effort to

sort of hopefully have a long term deterrence effect. We saw them do that locally with some of the doctor cases they did during the opioid crisis and pharmacies they went after.

Speaker 1

They couldn't go after them.

Speaker 5

All, so their only hope was to do a handful of really high profile prosecutions that would be in the media and that that would actually deter some of the crime. That's why, you know, we always often joke that the federal prosecutors prosecute by press release as much as anything else, because they really want people to know what they're doing. So that's absolutely right. I mean, there's a deterrence factor here. We know that this investigation went all over the state.

They looked at small city council's, township trustees all the way up than the northern part of Ohio that came during the trial. I think the idea was to try to get around the state geographically focus on local elected officials. Under this quick pro quote theory, it's not clear that the task force in the undercover agents are even still operating in the area. In fact, the way they testified,

I think it's very very unlikely. So I think the idea here was to have some sort of deterrence, and they probably knew that the law, you know, was at least it's very clear as written in the United States Code, but some of the Supreme Court cases around it make

it more difficult to enforce. It was an aggressive move, but you do, at the end of the day, have these three elected officials who are all three either call it on tape, text email, or some electronic means saying if you give me money to my campaign or me money personally, I will change my vote. And that's a problem. And I do think if nothing else that that has

been cleaned up. Now the flip side is I think it also has made the folks at city Hall almost terrified to engage in basic constituent services for fear that they're being recorded. I think it's actually having to effect the other way. As someone who has just trying to drive the city streets this morning in the snow that really wasn't meaningfully cleaned off, you know, I can tell you it's just, you know, I think it's a chilling effect almost the other way. We haven't seen a lot

of big new development deals since all this happened. It was a big, credible period there, so it's worse from that standpoint, and that's not uncommon. But you know, I think, you know, I'm less concerned about the frankly, the nitty gritty legal part of it, which I think is going to play out however it plays out. I think there is a splim chance the Supreme Court will take a look at this. But that said, it has to turn some of the behavior, at least in my experience.

Speaker 3

As to your other point, I may just be a reflection of the poor quality of the elected official or the lack of funds to get any projects done, because we do have a financial situation gone in the city of Cincinnati. But beyond that now is going back to the point in the Supreme Court you said slim chance,

and that's kind of what I thought. And you also mentioned earlier least in so far as having the entire sixth Circuit judge all the six Circuit judge panels hit here in unbunked rehearing of this, you suggest that that was a slim slim possibility as well. But behind the scenes, the law that governs this is it something that needs to be clarified much such as the Supreme Court might very well consider it because a, we can't have this gray area floating around out there anymore.

Speaker 5

Well, you know, I don't think the area is that gray personally. I mean, really, what it boils down to is the is the bribery statute, which has been in the General Criminal Code for you know, forty fifty years in its current forum, and the Hobzact, this idea that bribery a by a public official is uniquely bad and a kind of unique and separate crime because you're depriving people of the quote, honest goods and services they could expect from an elected off So I don't think that's.

Speaker 1

Likely to be touched.

Speaker 5

What's at issue is this case called McDonald, which is a US Supreme Court case from about four or five years ago that deals with.

Speaker 1

The governor of Virginia.

Speaker 5

There's a lot of where he was accused of doing quid pro quot type things for his donors, but really, when you got to the bottom of that case, he wasn't engaged in what they call official acts. He was helping the donors, you know, with little things around the side. He was introducing them to people who might help them with government contracts, but not actually steering the contract their way, giving them meetings and calling them out on in speeches

and things of that nature. And they could never really prove that he moved any legislation directly for them or moved money directly to and he helped them, but they didn't do much. And that's really what that case hung on. And that's what Sittenfeldt's team has been arguing from the beginning is that, look, this wasn't a true official act. PG was always out there pushing development deals. He was pro development. This was something he would have been doing anyway.

It was more tend to that. But in the reality, you know, he actually factually crossed the line here to callingport authority officials and trying to introduce legislation and you know, and things of that nature for a project we now know didn't even exist. Really, it was just something that that Defense undercover agents had totally cooked up a real location, but a fake project.

Speaker 1

So it is different here.

Speaker 5

For Actually, I think the McDonald's case is something that they might one day want to revisit because it does seem to open a door for arguments that could be made about whether or not a government official does something that's a true quid pro quo. But I don't think those are these are good facts for him to take up. I mean they might, I mean, I do note that the new Trump Justice administration really does seem to be casting a a tough I I guess on public corruption investigations.

I mean, they've seen press reports that they're kind of folding up their Adams investigation in New York at Trump's direction. And I do know that they've been looking at the kind of Foreign Corruption Act prosecutions which have been very popular that have kind of caught up people like Paul Manafort kind of from the Trump circle. And I've read that they're telling those folks to stand down in the Justice Department on any new cases until the.

Speaker 1

Law can be reviewed and revisited.

Speaker 5

So maybe this ironically pg sudentsvald who is a very very progressive, traditional democratic politician. I mean, the Trump election in the new Trump Justice Department might be one of his few avenues to get this looked at again in some way. But in terms of just really revamping the law,

I think it's pretty clear. If you actually find yourself in a conversation as an elected official where someone is linking directly linking a campaign contribution to an actual vote, that's a quid pro quo and that's something you can't do.

Speaker 3

Stop it right then and there. In debt in terms of him staying and will he remain out of jail, I know he's released from jail pending appeal now the appeals over will they let him out and tending the Supreme Court's review of the request for register cherrari or his request for an end bank hearing, and how long does that process take?

Speaker 1

Usually Steve.

Speaker 5

Well, I'll tell you it's it's this is the stuff that drives people nuts about the federal criminal system. The answer to that question isn't exactly clear, you know, at this point, you know, while the en banc process is going forward, which could take you know, a couple of months,

he is likely to remain out. Even though the Bureau of Prisons, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, actually has some administrative ability where they could actually now that the appeal has been resolved in the in the government's favor, they

actually could set a date require him to report. In all likelihood, they're going to let this on banc piece play out, and then it would really be up to the Supreme Court if they take the case to grant another stay, because then the Sixth Circuit would lose jurisdiction and because they didn't send the case back down for any kind of error, you know, Judge Cole and the District Court has no jurisdiction to inter a state too.

So if the en bog piece doesn't work, you know, then he will you know, he will likely be and the Supreme Court piece doesn't work, then the Bureau of Prisons will just finally set a report date for him. Because it's a non violent offense. In my experience, they're not going to send Marshalls out to go pick him up. You know, they'll do something a little more civilized, as

they like to say. They'll probably just say, he look, you need to be here, you know, three weeks from Saturday and the Yeah, they give people time to wrap up their personal affairs and so forth.

Speaker 1

So amazingly that is not very clear. Yeah, exactly exactly, Steve Gooden about another ten months to go.

Speaker 3

Yeah, and you know, by the time the Supreme Court hearing, if they had granted certain heard the case, he'd already have served his time. So I don't know if moot comes in or if they just give them up a post conviction, I don't know. You can't unring the bell having time serve. That's all I know is Steve Goodin. God bless you, sir. Thanks for you sharing your time with my listeners and me and giving us your thoughtful

at Sage Wisdom. And I'll look forward to having you on the program once we get another legal case to talk about.

Speaker 1

Hey, thank you so much, birch.

Speaker 3

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