U.S. Supreme Court denies appeal of convictions for Larry Householder and Matt Borges
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal of the convictions against the former speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives and the former chair of the Ohio Republican Party.
Larry Householder, the former speaker, and Mathew Borges, the former Ohio Republican Party chair, were convicted of taking part in a racketeering conspiracy involving $61 million in bribes and were both sentenced to prison terms by a federal judge. According to prosecutors, the bribes were paid by the electric company FirstEnergy in exchange for passing House Bill 6, legislation that provided the corporation with a a $1 billion bailout funded by adding fees to customers’ utility bills.
The Supreme Court denied Householder and Borges’ writ of certiorari on Monday. Householder’s attorney, Scott Pullins, said that the former Ohio House Speaker will seek a pardon from President Donald Trump, according to the Columbus Dispatch.
“It is a sad day today for the Borges and Householder families,” Pullins told the Columbus newspaper. “But it is even a sadder day for free speech and the rule of law. Lower courts have asked for years for the Supreme Court to clarify its rulings, and they have once again declined to do so.”
Housholder was sentenced to 20 years in prison for leading a racketeering conspiracy by Senior U.S. District Judge Timothy S. Black in 2023. The charges against the former speaker involve accepting $61 million in bribes, along with his co-conspirators, to pass HB 6.
“Larry Householder led a criminal enterprise responsible for one of the largest public corruption conspiracies in Ohio history,” U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Parker said in a release. “Elected officials owe a duty to provide honest services to their constituents – transparency, integrity and accountability are foundational principles of democracy.”
“Householder once held one of the three most powerful offices in the State of Ohio,” Parker added. “Now, because of his corruption, he will serve a substantial prison sentence.”
Borges was also sentenced to five years in prison in 2023 for participating in a racketeering conspiracy by paying a political operative $15,000 for information about the number of signatures on a petition and paying himself $360,000 of laundered bribe money.
The former party chair was released from prison in October 2025 due to credits earned through participation in recidivism reduction programs and educational classes under the federal First Step Act, Cleveland.com reported. He will spend the year after his release confined to either a halfway house or his home in suburban Columbus, and will be on probation for an additional year.
Former FirstEnergy executives Chuck Jones and Mike Dowling were tried in Akron for paying a $4.3 million bribe to Sam Randazzo, then the chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. However, the trial resulted in a hung jury, and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said that the state should retry Jones and Dowling.
Two others — Juan Cespedes, a FirstEnergy Solutions lobbyist, and Jeff Longstreth, a political consultant for Householder — await sentencing after pleading guilty. A fifth, superlobbyist Neil Clark, died by suicide in March 2021.
FirstEnergy was ordered to pay $249 million in restitution to customers as part of a January settlement, after PUCO found the company in violation of Ohio law.
Ohio lawmakers passed HB 6 in 2019, and the legislation gave FirstEnergy an over $1 billion ratepayer-funded bailout of two nuclear power plants. House Bill 15, which was signed into law in January, repealed parts of HB 6 and eliminated the option for utility companies to file an Electric Security Plan.
