Mandel defended illegal donations months after illegal straw donor plan uncovered
Today, Suarez Corporation Industries CFO Michael Giorgio reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors admitting that he and Canton businessman Benjamin Suarez illegally conspired to donate over $100,000 to Josh Mandel’s failed Senate campaign by using employees as straw donors to circumvent federal campaign finance laws.
In response to today’s plea deal, Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern released the following statement:
“Josh Mandel personally pushed Ben Suarez to raise $100,000 for his failed Senate campaign. Then, Mandel took over $100,000 in questionable donations and refused to answer questions about the legality of those donations. At Suarez’s request, Mandel used the power of his office to attempt to threaten another state into dropping lawsuits against Mr. Suarez. It’s time for Josh to finally answer the questions of what he knew and when.”
BACKGROUND
Mandel personally solicited Ben Suarez to raise $100,000 for Mandel’s failed Senate campaign in early 2011. According to the federal indictment charging Suarez and Giorgio, Josh Mandel personally asked Suarez “to raise $100,000 for the Republican’s U.S. Senate campaign” in a handwritten note. [Source: Columbus Dispatch (9/28/2013), “Josh Mandel asked Benjamin Suarez to raise campaign cash.”]
When Mandel’s campaign started receiving the illegal donations from Suarez, Mandel had the State Treasurer’s office send a threatening letter to the California Treasurer threatening that Ohio would sue California over its litigation against Suarez’s company. Around the same time Mandel was looking to get $100,000 in campaign contributions from Ben Suarez, Mandel sent a letter to the California State Treasurer threatening to have the State of Ohio sue California if it continue to push litigation against Ben Suarez’s company. A spokesman for the California Treasurer said Mandel’s letter “read like a letter from an ill-informed constitutent.” [Source: Plain Dealer(10/9/2013), “California treasurer’s office surprised by Josh Mandel’s letter on behalf of Benjamin Suarez.”]
Questions about the $100,000 in Suarez employee donations were raised as early as August 2011 when they were made by employees with no campaign donation history and seemingly limited financial resources. The Toledo Blade first raised questions about the donation from Suarez employees noting that many had never donated before and lived in modest houses with modest incomes. [Source: Toledo Blade (8/19/2011), “Canton firm’s workers making unusual donations.”]
Initially, Josh Mandel defended the questionable donations from Suarez as a strength of his campaign. In an interview with WKYC, Josh Mandel was asked about the questionable donations from the Suarez employees in which he dismissed any questions about the donations and defended them as a strength of his campaign. [Source: WKYC Interview (9/21/2011)]
Nine months after being questioned about the Suarez donations, Mandel finally returned the illegal donations. As reports of the FBI investigation into the illegal straw donors became public, Josh Mandel finally returned the illegal donations nine months after questions were first publicly raised about them. [Source: Toledo Blade (5/24/2012), “Josh Mandel returns money to Suarez employees.”]
Suarez Corporation Industries CFO admits that Suarez concocted the plan to use employees and their spouses as “straw donors” to violate federal campaign finance laws. In a 26-page plea agreement, Giorgio admitted that Suarez created a plan to use employees and their spouses as donors to Mandel’s campaign with the company reimbursing them. [Source: Cleveland Plain Dealer(5/19/2014), “Ben Suarez orchestrated illegal campaign scheme, per company CFO Michael Giorgio’s plea agreement.”]