This story is reported by The Columbus Dispatch, a Spectrum News partner.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Lately it seems I cannot flip through the TV channels without coming across Francis Ford Coppola’s Mafia epic, “The Godfather.”
This is bad news for the rest of the household, because I cannot resist watching “The Godfather” even if I have just watched “The Godfather” the week before, the night before, or hour before.
In the past week, I’ve bumped into the film three times.
After the third viewing, I realized something about it felt fresher, more timely. Then it hit me, as hard as the jaw-breaking fist of crooked NYPD Capt. McCluskey.
The Godfather.
The Speaker.
The Larry Householder racketeering complaint.
Of course I would never suggest that the massive conspiracy that feds say was engineered largely by Householder was on par with the exploits of legendary silver screen mobster family, the Corleones.
The Perry County lawmaker, charged with what U.S. Attorney David DeVillers called "likely the largest bribery, money-laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people of Ohio,“ is innocent until proven guilty.
The scheme also did not, as far as we know, involve decapitating a thoroughbred race horse, and any similarities to “The Godfather” and real events now playing out in Ohio are coincidental.
Yet even the involved front companies have the same feel.
Vito Corleone had Genco Pura Olive Oil Company as his primary front for the shady family business. The FBI says that Householder’s front was a dark-money “social welfare” group called Generation Now.
Based on the criminal complaint, the goings-on at GenNow were just as oily as those at Genco.
The words of Householder and his cronies, as captured on FBI recordings and wiretaps, read like script lines for the Corleone family. If not for the character names, you’d be hard-pressed to tell which snippets of dialogue are spoken by which enterprise.
We all know the famous lines exchanged when Sonny Corleone, played by James Caan, is presented with two dead fish wrapped in the body armor of Corleone enforcer, Luca Brasi.
“What the hell is this?” he asks.
“It’s a Sicilian message,” replies Peter Clemenza, one of his father’s closest confidants. “It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.”
Now take a look at this gem:
“It sends the message to everyone else...if you attack a member, we’re going to (expletive) rip your (genitals) off.”
According to the FBI, that was uttered at a dinner club meeting by Householder’s go-to guy, Neil Clark.
The Householder complaint has everything a mobster movie script requires: demands of loyalty, veiled threats, and very naughty words.
During another recorded meeting, Clark said that Householder took millions from FirstEnergy, “but he went to war for them.”
He also went to war against those who did not get behind him.
“We can (expletive) them over later,” Householder said in one conversation recorded by the FBI.
According to the complaint, “People who vote against Householder lose a lot,” Clark advised a state representative who wouldn’t get in line.
In a bit of timing that seems straight from the tip of a screenwriter’s pen, this representative literally was talking to the FBI when he received a text from Householder. The lawmaker reiterated his contrary position, which drew an immediate response from Householder, which the lawmaker then showed to the FBI agents.
“I just want you to remember – when I needed you – you weren’t there,” it read. “Twice.”
In announcing the arrests last week, U.S. Attorney David DeVillers suggested that the complaint, long as it was, was only a plot summary.
“We are not done with this case,” he said. “As of this morning, there are a lot of FBI agents knocking on a lot of doors asking a lot of questions, serving a lot of subpoenas, executing a lot of search warrants.”
We should not be surprised should one of those searches turn up a horse’s head.
Theodore Decker is the Metro columnist for The Columbus Dispatch.
@Theodore_Decker
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