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Tag: conspiracy

  • More signs that criminal investigation into Ohio utility bailout continues

    More signs that criminal investigation into Ohio utility bailout continues

    Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station with electricity pylons, Ohio. Getty Images.

    BY:  – Ohio Capital Journal

    Five have been charged and four have been convicted in a massive bribery and money-laundering scandal, but there were more signs this week that the federal criminal investigation is continuing.

    In court documents filed in a separate case on Monday, a special master said that a major player in the conspiracy — Akron-based FirstEnergy — continues to cooperate with federal prosecutors. The same documents order the major beneficiary of the conspiracy, a former FirstEnergy subsidiary, to do more to cooperate in a federal class-action suit.

    Former House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, and former GOP Chairman Matt Borges in June were respectively sentenced to 20 and five years in federal prison for their roles in the conspiracy. Two others have pleaded guilty and await sentencing, while a third who was charged died by suicide.

    In the conspiracy, FirstEnergy and its then-subsidiary paid more than $60 million from 2017 to 2019 to make Householder speaker so he could pass and protect a $1.3 billion bailout. Of that sum, the vast majority was intended to prop up two nuclear plants owned by the subsidiary, then called FirstEnergy Solutions.

    Over the course of a six-week trial in Cincinnati early this year, prosecutors put on evidence that FirstEnergy found itself in a precarious state because its heavy investments in coal and nuclear-powered generation were being undercut by cheap natural gas. Top executives with the company — including then-CEO Chuck Jones and Vice President Michael Dowling — desperately sought a ratepayer bailout to prop up the nuclear plants so they could spin them off and get most of the liability associated with closing and cleaning them up off their books.

    In 2019, as Householder was shepherding the bailout through the legislature, FirstEnergy Solutions was in bankruptcy and emerged in February 2020. It had a new name, Energy Harbor, and it was no longer a subsidiary of FirstEnergy.

    Five months later, the FBI arrested Householder and the others. Then large pension and investment funds sued FirstEnergy, saying the reckless, undisclosed conduct of its top executives caused investors to lose billions when that conduct hit the public fan.

    FirstEnergy signed a deferred prosecution agreement admitting wrongdoing and agreeing to pay a $230 million penalty to the government. But that didn’t get it off the hook in the multiple civil suits it’s faced, including the class action filed in the Southern District of Ohio by large investors.

    As part of the suit, those investors have been battling FirstEnergy for communications and other information that might implicate officials other than Jones and Dowling, who were fired.

    They’re also battling Sam Randazzo. He isn’t named in the suit, but FirstEnergy said he took a $4.3 million bribe from Jones and Dowling just as Gov. Mike DeWine nominated Randazzo to chair the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio at the beginning of 2019. The class-action plaintiffs say Randazzo might be sitting on text messages and other communications relevant to the conspiracy.

    Jones, Dowling and Randazzo deny criminal wrongdoing in the scandal, but U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Parker in June said that the investigation was continuing. On Monday, Special Master Shawn Judge also said in a court filing that the investigation continues — and that FirstEnergy is cooperating.

    “During this jury trial, the government highlighted Jones’s and Dowling’s purported relationships with Householder and involvement in the conspiracy,” Judge wrote, referring to the criminal trial earlier this year. “And multiple representations before the Court suggest that FirstEnergy’s cooperation with government investigations is ongoing.”

    Judge is helping to referee the numerous discovery disputes in the class-action case. In this instance, he ordered Energy Harbor to provide almost everything the FirstEnergy investors wanted.

    As a now-independent company, Energy Harbor said it’s not a defendant in the civil case, so it shouldn’t be put to the trouble and expense to provide the information the pension and investment funds are demanding.

    But Judge noted that while it was still a FirstEnergy subsidiary, the company “​​contributed $43 million of the $60 million paid to Householder and his affiliates in exchange for the official action of passing (the bailout law) and defending it from a repeal referendum.”

    In addition, Judge wrote, the subsidiary’s lobbyist, Juan Cespedes, helped direct some of those funds and pleaded guilty to his role in the racketeering conspiracy.

    Judge then ordered Energy Harbor to provide the plaintiffs with the information they requested, but reduced the time period the required documents span by several months.

    Marty Schladen
    MARTY SCHLADEN

    Marty Schladen has been a reporter for decades, working in Indiana, Texas and other places before returning to his native Ohio to work at The Columbus Dispatch in 2017. He’s won state and national journalism awards for investigations into utility regulation, public corruption, the environment, prescription drug spending and other matters.

    MORE FROM AUTHOR

  • Fate of former Ohio House speaker could hinge on whether he took an “official act”

    Fate of former Ohio House speaker could hinge on whether he took an “official act”

    Larry Householder addresses reporters after lawmakers voted to expel him from the General Assembly. He has pleaded not guilty to a racketeering charge and awaits trial. Photo by Jake Zuckerman, OCJ.

    BY: MARTY SCHLADEN – Ohio Capital Journal

    It appears that federal prosecutors have a mountain of evidence they want to present to the jury in their racketeering case against former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and former Ohio GOP Chairman Matt Borges. 

    They have emails, text messages, wiretap transcripts, and the testimony of undercover agents and confidential informants. They have so much material that U.S. District Judge Timothy Black said prosecutors and defense attorneys labored mightily before the trial even started to agree on what could be presented to the jury. The process was meant to avoid bogging down what’s already expected to be a six-week ordeal.

    But all that evidence could miss the mark if none of it shows that Householder undertook an “official act” in exchange for all the millions Akron-based FirstEnergy funneled into 501(c)(4) dark money groups to support the effort to elect friendly Republicans who would vote to make Householder speaker. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned a public corruption conviction on that basis just six years ago.

    Householder is accused of masterminding a conspiracy to use $61 million from FirstEnergy and other utilities to make himself speaker and in return ramming through a $1.3 billion ratepayer bailout of failing nuclear and coal plants. His trial began last week, but after two days of testimony it was delayed — first because of weather and then because a juror was diagnosed with COVID.

    But last week, FBI Special Agent Blane Wetzel testified about conduct that made both Householder and FirstEnergy look pretty bad.

    Householder is accused of using about $500,000 from the dark money groups to pay off credit card debt, settle a lawsuit, and repair a Florida home. Meanwhile, FirstEnergy was losing so much money on its nuclear and coal plants that in 2016 it started the process that would send the subsidiary that owned them into bankruptcy.

    But even as the company and Householder were swimming in red ink, he and the company’s CEO flew to Washington, D.C., on private jets in January 2017 for three days of dinners and drinks at some of the city’s swankiest bars and restaurants, Wetzel said. 

    Within two weeks, FirstEnergy money was flowing into Householder-controlled dark-money accounts. In November of 2018, enough Householder-friendly Republicans were elected — many with the help of money from those accounts — to make him speaker the following January. Less than six months later, on May 28, 2019, the House passed its first version of the billion-dollar bailout, House Bill 6. The body passed a final version on July 23, 2019 and Gov. Mike DeWine signed it the same day.

    When former U.S. Attorney David M. DeVillers announced Householder’s arrest almost exactly a year later, he called the scheme with FirstEnergy “likely the largest bribery and money-laundering scheme ever in the state of Ohio.”

    But did Householder undertake an official act in exchange for money corruptly received from FirstEnergy and other Ohio utilities? The answer might not be as straightforward as you think.

    For their part, Householder’s attorneys are arguing that their client was merely raising money like any effective politician would and that he only wanted to subsidize the power plants to save Ohio jobs and the tax bases of school districts.

    In addition, the Supreme Court in 2016 threw out the conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell even though he and his wife took more than $170,000 worth of loans and gifts from a businessman in exchange for hosting him at functions, recommending his product to state agencies, and trying to persuade state universities to study it.

    At issue was whether any of those were “official acts.”

    In that case, Jonnie Williams, CEO of Star Scientific, supported the Virginia Republican’s successful 2009 campaign. Once in office, the gifts really started to flow — including $20,000 worth of designer clothing for McDonnell’s wife, Maureen McDonnell, and a Rolex watch that Maureen gave Bob for Christmas.

    Williams was peddling a compound found in tobacco as a nutritional supplement called Anatabloc. In 2011, the McDonnells hosted an event at the Governor’s Mansion that Williams testified was intended to launch the product. He wanted scientists at the state’s universities to research it, but neither he nor the McDonnells could interest them in the supplement.

    The governor also told the state secretary of administration and the director of the Virginia Department of Human Resources that it would be a good idea for all state employees to take Anatabloc like he was. The officials apparently didn’t take the hint. 

    Investigators caught wind of the McDonnells’ arrangement with Williams and charged them with numerous crimes related to bribery.

    In 2014, they were convicted in federal court and Bob and Maureen were sentenced to two and one year in prison, respectively. They appealed, but the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond upheld the conviction.

    However, when the case made it north to the U.S. Supreme Court, in Washington, D.C., it was overturned. Unanimously.

    Chief Justice John Roberts, the author of the ruling, said that the court took up the case expressly “to clarify the meaning of ‘official act.’” 

    In his trial, “Governor McDonnell had requested the court to further instruct the jury that the ‘fact that an activity is a routine activity, or a ‘settled practice,’ of an office-holder does not alone make it an ‘official act,’ and that ‘merely arranging a meeting, attending an event, hosting a reception, or making a speech are not, standing alone, ‘official acts,’ even if they are settled practices of the official,’ because they ‘are not decisions on matters pending before the government.’” Roberts wrote.

    Instead, McDonnell’s lawyers argued, an official act must be intended to “influence a specific official decision the government actually makes — such as awarding a contract, hiring a government employee, issuing a license, passing a law, or implementing a regulation.”

    In overturning the convictions, the high court agreed, ruling that the McDonnells could still be prosecuted, but the “Government must identify a ‘question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy’ that ‘may at any time be pending’ or ‘may by law be brought’ before a public official. Second, the Government must prove that the public official made a decision or took an action ‘on’ that question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding, or controversy, or agreed to do so.”

    How much comfort Householder should take from the ruling is uncertain, however. Roberts ended the ruling with what seems to be a warning to politicians thinking of doing shady stuff.

    “There is no doubt that this case is distasteful; it may be worse than that,” he wrote. “But our concern is not with tawdry tales of Ferraris, Rolexes, and ball gowns. It is instead with the broader legal implications of the Government’s boundless interpretation of the federal bribery statute. A more limited interpretation of the term ‘official act’ leaves ample room for prosecuting corruption, while comporting with the text of the statute and the precedent of this Court.”

  • Utility and fossil fuel influence in Ohio goes beyond passage of bailout

    Utility and fossil fuel influence in Ohio goes beyond passage of bailout

    This article is provided by Eye on Ohio in partnership with Energy News Network

    Dark money loopholes remain, while people linked to utilities and fossil fuels hold public office or enjoy ongoing access to government officials.

    by Kathiann M. Kowalski

    Dark money loopholes remain in Ohio law, despite last month’s surgical repeal of part of the law at the heart of a $60 million corruption scandal. Meanwhile, more evidence has emerged in recent months, detailing the flow of money by groups engaged in the House Bill 6 scandal and showing close ties between current and former utility lobbyists and Gov. Mike DeWine, as well as various lawmakers.

    “We need to learn from our mistakes,” said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, a group that advocates for more transparency and accountability in politics. She noted that the House Bill 6 case is just the latest in a line of corruption scandals that have rocked state politics in the past two decades.

    A federal complaint released last July alleged an unlawful conspiracy to elect lawmakers who would favor Rep. Larry Householder as House speaker, secure passage of House Bill 6 and defend it against a referendum. A court filing by FirstEnergy in March admits that millions of dollars went from one of its subsidiaries either directly or indirectly to Generation Now, the primary dark money group at the center of the alleged scheme, or to other entities alleged to have played roles. Some funds were paid at the direction of FirstEnergy Solutions, the document claims.

    In addition to promptly repealing the whole law, legislators should have pursued action to prevent such a situation from happening again, Turcer said. Instead, “there was not any indication in place during the summer of a path of how to make sure we don’t create a space for misdeeds.”

    Efforts by FirstEnergy and others to make political contributions through dark money organizations — 501(c)(4) nonprofits and some political for-profits that are not required to disclose their donors — have touched numerous entities with connections throughout the Ohio government, according to data from various sources.

    The Accountability Project is a national database that collects records of federal campaign contributions, grants from nonprofits, expenditures by political action committees and more. The database also identifies shared addresses and other links among individuals and organizations.

    Among other things, the database reveals that Generation Now’s address shown on a 2017 corporate filing was the same as that for co-defendant Jeff Longstreth and his business JPL & Associates. JPL & Associates was shown as the president and secretary on an October 2019 IRS filing by Generation Now.

    The Accountability Project information also indicates that in 2018 Generation Now and JPL & Associates did business at a Capitol Square office tower. The same suite address was used at various times that same year for Friends of Larry Householder, the Committee to Elect Bill Roemer, Harris for Ohio and  Barhorst for Ohio.

    In earlier years the same suite address had been used by the Coalition for Growth and Opportunity, which received money from an American Electric Power-funded group. The office suite is unoccupied now, but at some earlier point the suite also had been the office address for a bespoke tailoring business. (The company moved out of the space years ago, Eye on Ohio and the Energy News Network learned.)

    Nonetheless, utilities and fossil fuel interests seek to continue to tailor Ohio energy policies to their benefit. Among other things, most candidates elected in 2018 whose campaigns got money from the alleged HB 6 scheme were reelected in 2020. Their incumbent statuses would have given them a bump, according to David Anderson, policy and communications director for the Energy and Policy Institute. Federal filings indicate substantial additional spending for the last election cycle as well, he added.

    FirstEnergy and its political action committee reported more than $1.1 million in campaign donations for 2019 and 2020, primarily to Republicans, the National Institute on Money in Politics reports. Nearly half a million of that went to candidates in Ohio.

    Those reported amounts don’t include spending by any dark money groups the company or other energy companies with utilities in Ohio might have donated to. The Growth & Opportunity political action committee had spent money in early 2020 to influence several Ohio primaries, Anderson noted.

    Close ties

    DeWine signed HB 6 into law within hours of its passage in July 2019. Even after HB 6 passed, close ties have remained between utilities and fossil fuel interests, on the one hand, and leadership in Ohio’s legislative and executive branches.

    Since the federal complaint was released last July 21, DeWine has stood by Dan McCarthy, whom he appointed as his director of legislative affairs in early 2019. As a lobbyist at the Success Group in Columbus, McCarthy had long been active in state politics and has contributed to a variety of campaigns, as data from the Accountability Project shows.

    McCarthy was a registered lobbyist representing FirstEnergy in 2017 and 2018, when the events alleged in the HB 6 conspiracy began, according to data from the Ohio Lobbying Activity Center. He also was president of Partners for Progress, the FirstEnergy-funded “Energy Pass-Through” organization that allegedly funneled millions of dollars into efforts to pass and preserve HB 6.

    The bio released by DeWine’s office when he appointed McCarthy in 2019 shows that he had previously managed several political campaigns in addition to working for the Success Group. McCarthy resigned from Partners for Progress before assuming his current government position. 

    His former Success Group colleague McKenzie Davis was a director for Partners for Progress through at least 2019, according to a November 2020 IRS filing by the group. The report also shows R. Scott Davis as president and secretary, and lawyer Michael Van Buren at Calfee, Halter & Griswold in Cleveland as treasurer. 

    The IRS filing showed that $13 million went from Partners for Progress to Generation Now in 2019, plus additional amounts to other organizations for “political campaign intervention,” lobbying and “educating the public about utility options.” Funds from two of those dark money groups supported DeWine’s campaign, as well as an unsuccessful campaign by his daughter Alice DeWine, the Cincinnati Enquirer has reported.

    Other lawyers at Van Buren’s firm represented FirstEnergy in cases before the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, including one begun after news of the HB 6 scandal broke, for the purpose of determining if funds from FirstEnergy’s utility ratepayers were spent on HB 6 activities. Attorneys from Jones Day are now counsel in some of those cases.

    “It looks a bit different when the lawyers who defend you work for the firm that was part of that political spending,” Anderson said. Van Buren and a colleague did not respond to an inquiry about the reason for the change.

    On call

    FirstEnergy was not the only utility with ongoing links to the governor’s office. An October 2019 email recently released by Common Cause Ohio last month shows that the DeWine-Husted campaign held a weekly finance call, even though they’re not up for reelection until next year. The call list included multiple people with ties to utilities and fossil fuels, including FirstEnergy lobbyist Josh Rubin of the CJR Group, Duke Energy Business Services lobbyist Chip Gerhardt of Government Strategies Group, and Ohio Coal Association lobbyist Richard Hillis of Governmental Policy Group. The Governmental Policy Group’s address has been used by several political action committees throughout the years, Accountability Project data show.

    Also on the DeWine-Husted finance call list was J.B. Hadden, who has been president of Empowering Ohio’s Economy, one of the dark money groups that had also paid money to Generation Now. As of last summer, American Electric Power had contributed a total of $8.7 million to Empowering Ohio’s Economy since 2015, including $700,000 in 2019, according to company spokesperson Scott Blake. “We will continue to legally and ethically advocate on behalf of our customers and our company,” Blake said.

    AEP’s vice president for external affairs, Tom Froehle, also has been a board member of Empowering Ohio’s Economy, dating back to 2016, Blake confirmed.

    Froehle and AEP Director of Government Affairs Maria Haberman met with Householder in February 2020, after HB 6 was law but before the scandal broke last summer, Anderson noted. Householder’s calendar didn’t indicate what the meeting was about.

    As for Empowering Ohio’s Economy, its 2019 tax filing showed more than half a million dollars going to Generation Now. Donations to several other organizations included a $25,000 contribution to the Ohio Governor’s Residence & Office Fund, which is yet another dark money group. It has spent nearly $200,000 on meetings at the residence “to promote better and more efficient government.”

    Another $2 million went from Empowering Ohio’s Economy to another dark money group, Open Road Path, in 2019 “to promote economic and business development within Ohio.” Hadden did not respond to a request for additional information for this article.

    Regulatory connections

    Anne Vogel, former managing director of AEP’s government affairs office, became DeWine’s assistant director for energy and natural resources starting in March 2019. By July, HB 6 was passed. 

    In December 2020, Vogel became a finalist to replace Sam Randazzo as chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. Randazzo resigned the day after a FirstEnergy government filing stated that the company had paid $4 million in early 2019 to an entity apparently linked to Randazzo. After criticisms surfaced about last December’s list of PUCO nominees, DeWine ultimately asked for additional names and appointed Jenifer French to the post.

    The PUCO nominating council likewise has connections to utilities and fossil fuel interests. Chair Michael Koren was a registered lobbyist for FirstEnergy through 2019. He chaired the committee that nominated Randazzo for the PUCO in 2019. Ohio Lobbying Activity Center data shows Koren also has been a lobbyist for Columbia Gas and Boich Companies, which made its fortune in the coal industry.

    Randazzo’s calendar for the time he was PUCO chair shows multiple meetings with people from utility companies or their parent corporations, as well as with coal fleet lobbyist Michelle Bloodworth. 

    “I am unaware of any meeting in which a commissioner held a discussion of pending proceedings,” said PUCO spokesperson Matt Schilling, noting that meetings otherwise “could have been regarding any number of general energy or commercial transportation matters relative [to] the delivery of adequate, safe and reliable utility service.”

    Nonetheless, the Energy and Policy Institute’s Anderson said, the absence of detailed notations in the calendar presents “definitely a lot of potential conflicts.”

    Accountability Project data also shows that AEP’s Froehle, Randazzo and Scott Elisar, the PUCO’s current legislative and policy director, all had worked at the same law firm, McNees, Wallace & Nurick. The firm has long represented Industrial Energy Users-Ohio, which has pushed for limiting clean energy standards, and whose members have long enjoyed favorable rates from utilities.

    Still ahead

    Dark money loopholes made the alleged HB 6 scheme possible. “Dark money is a breeding ground for corruption,” former U.S. attorney David DeVillers said when the indictment was filed last July. The federal investigation continues, although the pandemic delayed some grand jury proceedings, he told the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel Governing Board on March 16. In-person meetings of the grand jury have recently resumed, he noted.

    “[For] a lot of these cases that have been on the back burner, you can expect to see a lot more indictments coming,” DeVillers said.

    This year, House Bill 13 aims to address some dark money issues. A hearing will be held in the coming week, so there’s at least some potential for lawmakers to take action this session. But so far, Turcer said, “it’s just that they have completely dragged their feet.”

    __________________________________

    This story is part of a collaborative journalism project produced by the Energy News Network and Eye on Ohio, the Ohio Center for Investigative Journalism. Funding is provided by the Cleveland Foundation, the George Gund Foundation, and the Accountability Project at American University’s Investigative Reporting Workshop.

    This article first appeared on Eye on Ohio and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

    This article provided by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism in partnership with the nonprofit Energy News Network. Please join our free mailing list or the mailing list for the Energy New Network as this helps us provide more public service reporting.

  • Milford, Ohio man Indicted in Machine Gun Scheme

    Milford, Ohio man Indicted in Machine Gun Scheme

    Allegedly conspired with two Indiana gun dealers to acquire over 200 fully automatic weapons and re-sell them at a profit

    One of those guns was an M2 .50 caliber belt-fed heavy machine gun, which according to the Indictment, is a vehicle- or ship-mounted weapon that is effective against lightly armored vehicles and low-flying aircraft.

    Indianapolis – Acting U.S. Attorney John E. Childress announced on Friday that Dorian LaCourse, 65, of Milford, Ohio, was indicted by a federal grand jury for his role in a scheme to use his position as Chief of Police for the Addyston Police Department in Addyston, Ohio, to help two federally licensed firearms dealers in Indiana acquire hundreds of machine guns. LaCourse was indicted on charges of conspiracy and making false statements to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). 

    Acting U.S. Attorney John E. Childress

    Childress also announced today that the two Indiana gun dealers, Johnathan Marcum, 33, of Laurel, Indiana, and Christopher Petty, 57, of Lawrenceburg, Indiana, have been charged with conspiracy for their roles in the machine gun scheme.

    “Federal laws regulating the purchase, transfer or possession of firearms exist to promote public safety,” said Childress. “When people violate those laws, they unacceptably threaten the safety of others. This office will vigorously pursue those who commit federal firearms offenses, regardless of who they are. We expect better from our public servants, and when police officers violate the law, they can expect to be investigated and prosecuted like any other citizen. I am confident that LaCourse’s criminal choices do not represent the vast majority of law enforcement in this country.”

    According to the Indictment, LaCourse and the two Indiana firearms dealers exploited a law enforcement exception to the general federal ban on fully automatic machine guns. The Village of Addyston, Ohio, has approximately 1,000 residents, and the Addyston Police Department has up to 10 officers, most of whom were part-time. However, according to the Indictment, between 2015 and 2019, LaCourse signed multiple letters and other official documents as Chief of Police falsely claiming to the ATF and others that the Addyston Police Department was interested in purchasing or receiving demonstrations of machine guns.

    The Addyston Police Department and Village of Addyston had no intention of purchasing machine guns or receiving demonstrations of machine guns. Instead, these allegedly false statements were a pretense to gain ATF approval for Marcum and Petty to acquire machine guns, which they re-sold to other federally licensed firearms dealers at a profit—of which LaCourse got a portion. According to the Indictment, LaCourse received 11 checks payable to him totaling over $11,500.

    In four instances, LaCourse falsely claimed on ATF forms and other documents that the Addyston Police Department was the actual purchaser of machine guns, including two bulk purchases of a total of 18 guns from German manufacturer Heckler & Koch. On one document required by the German government, which pertained to the importation of the machine guns into the United States, LaCourse is alleged to have falsely stated that the Addyston Police Department was the “end-user” of the guns. In reality, according to the Indictment, Marcum purchased the guns for the purpose of re-selling them—Marcum paid for them, picked them up from the Addyston Police Department when they arrived, and promptly re-sold them at a profit of over $8,000 each.

    In all, the Indictment alleges that through their scheme, LaCourse’s false statements and representations induced the ATF to approve the purchase or importation of approximately 200 fully automatic machine guns. The types of guns acquired ranged from smaller submachine guns to automatic assault rifles, to belt-fed machine guns for military use. One of those guns was an M2 .50 caliber belt-fed heavy machine gun, which according to the Indictment, is a vehicle- or ship-mounted weapon that is effective against lightly armored vehicles and low-flying aircraft. 

    This case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

    “No matter who you are, it is a crime to make false statements to acquire firearms and allow them into the hands of those who cannot legally possess them,” stated Roland H. Herndon, Jr., Special Agent in Charge of ATF’s Columbus Field Division. “LaCourse, Marcum, and Petty all used their positions and knowledge of the system to illegally transfer fully automatic weapons for profit, with no regard for any potential impact that might have on our communities.”

    According to Assistant United States Attorneys Nick Linder and William L. McCoskey, who are prosecuting this case for the government, LaCourse faces up to 5 or 10 years in prison on each charge if indicted and convicted. Marcum and Petty each face up to 5 years.

    An indictment is merely a charge and not evidence of guilt. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven otherwise in court.