Steve Goodin - Is PG Finally Going To Jail?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Seven thirty one. That was an.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
I just gave it full.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Don't found him guilty even sixteen in him. Well played
Joe Strucker and I seen song bomb for our conversation.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
A sound effect.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
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

(00:49):
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

(01:11):
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

(01:32):
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 (01:47):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (01:47):
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

(02:08):
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,

(02:31):
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 (02:40):
And this was during COVID time. They were wearing.

Speaker 5 (02:42):
Masks and you could still see that they were aghast
at some of the testimony.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
The only thing.

Speaker 5 (02:48):
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

(03:11):
their votes or positions based on a cash payment personally,
that's you know, that's.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Not a problem. I mean, that's that's a crime. The
quid pro quo period in this.

Speaker 5 (03:20):
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,

(03:42):
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,

(04:03):
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

(04:28):
Eric Murphy. Judge Murphy who was the former Hire Solicitor
Brilliant Guy Trump appointee.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Even though he agreed with h letting.

Speaker 5 (04:37):
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 (04:50):
So my guess is that.

Speaker 5 (04:54):
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 (05:02):
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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I hear the train of coming, it's rolling around it,
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Speaker 3 (08:02):
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

(08:24):
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 (08:48):
I think that's the idea behind the prosecution. Brian.

Speaker 5 (08:51):
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

(09:12):
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 (09:29):
They couldn't go after them.

Speaker 5 (09:30):
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.

(09:52):
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

(10:13):
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,

(10:35):
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

(10:56):
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

(11:19):
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

(11:40):
look at this. But that said, it has to turn
some of the behavior, at least in my experience.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
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

(12:09):
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 (12:33):
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

(12:53):
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 (13:01):
Likely to be touched.

Speaker 5 (13:03):
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 (13:10):
The governor of Virginia.

Speaker 5 (13:12):
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,

(13:33):
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.

(13:54):
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

(14:15):
that Defense undercover agents had totally cooked up a real location,
but a fake project.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
So it is different here.

Speaker 5 (14:22):
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

(14:44):
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.

(15:04):
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 (15:20):
Law can be reviewed and revisited.

Speaker 5 (15:23):
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,

(15:43):
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 (15:57):
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 (16:17):
Usually Steve.

Speaker 5 (16:20):
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

(16:40):
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

(17:04):
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.

(17:25):
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 (17:42):
So amazingly that is not very clear. Yeah, exactly exactly,
Steve Gooden about another ten months to go.

Speaker 3 (17:51):
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

(18:12):
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 (18:18):
Hey, thank you so much, birch.

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