Former Ohio Senate candidate charged in a $4.5 million embezzlement scheme

While one failed Ohio Senate candidate is charged with embezzling millions, a former councilman is released from prison for a similar crime.

Federal prosecutors have charged a former Ohio Senate candidate, Jonathan Leissler, 44, with embezzling more than $4.5 million from a Warrensville Heights company he worked for and funneling money into his campaign.

According to Cleveland.com, prosecutors stated that Leissler also embezzled money from the Fraternal Order of Police Associates, where he served as a local treasurer, and a company that handles fundraising accounts for politicians.

Leissler was charged last week in federal court in Akron with three counts of wire fraud.

The former political candidate was scheduled for arraignment on Wednesday in front of U.S. District Magistrate Judge Jonathan Greenberg. Leissler’s attorney, Peter Cahoon, declined to comment.

Leissler, a Republican, is a former Stow-Munroe Falls school board member who ran for the Ohio Senate in 2024 but lost to Hudson Democrat Casey Weinstein.

Leissler was also accused of embezzling from the FOP Associates Lodge 66 in Stow, Ohio, by making unauthorized withdrawals and expenditures and then telling officials that their account balances were significantly higher than they actually were.

According to Tim Reiheld, president of FOP Lodge 66, which represents Stow police officers, Lessler stole approximately $40,000 from the FOP Associates, about 80% of the group’s bank account balance. Reiheld thinks that “it’s doubtful” the organization will ever get the money back.

“The FOPA and FOP have been greatly financially impacted by this situation,” he said.

As a result of that, the organization was unable to fund its scholarship fund for children of police officers, which caused several members to quit and prevented the organization from hiring new members, according to FOP Associates Vice President Mario Fiocca.

Meanwhile, disgraced former Cleveland City Councilman Ken Johnson was released from prison on Nov. 14.

Johnson, 79, served more than four years of a six-year prison sentence for orchestrating schemes in which he stole from the city and federal government while representing the Buckeye-Shaker Square neighborhood on council, the news source said in another report.

U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokesman Donald Murphy confirmed Johnson’s prison release. 

Johnson served time at the federal prison in Morgantown, W.V. According to Bureau of Prisons records, in recent weeks, he was housed at a residential re-entry facility in Cincinnati.

Johnson will be on post-prison supervision for the next three years.