City Council member faces bribery charges

Cincinnati CINCINNATI —

City Council member Jeff Pastor took $55,000 in bribes over the course of about a year in exchange for “official action” related to projects in the city, according to federal officials.

A federal grand jury charged Pastor, 36, with honest services wire fraud, bribery, attempted extortion by a government official and money laundering, officials said.

David DeVillers, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, announced the indictment on Tuesday afternoon.

“This indictment is indicative of culture of corruption, a culture of extortion, a culture of pay-to-play,” DeVillers said.

An FBI squad arrested Pastor at his home early Tuesday morning. Pastor, a Republican, is a member of city council’s Law and Public Safety Committee. The committee met at 9 a.m. Tuesday. Pastor was not in attendance because he had already been arrested.

Fe d e r a l officials announced charges against Pastor at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Cincinnati.

Pastor and his business partner, Tyran Marshall, 35, are both charged in the public corruption case, officials said.

Pastor’s arrest is the second time a sitting Cincinnati City Council member has been arrested this year. Federal officials arrested former Cincinnati City Council member Tamaya Dennard in a similar manner in February;

officials arrested her at a downtown Starbucks about two hours before she was scheduled to lead an Equity, Inclusion, Youth & the Arts Committee meeting at City Hall.

Dennard pleaded guilty in June to honest services wire fraud for taking $15,000 in exchange for votes on council. She faces up to 20 years in prison, up to three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine.

Cincinnati City Council memberBetsy Sundermann tweeted shortly after the news broke Tuesday morning, calling for Pastor to resign.

Hamilton County GOP chairman Alex Triantafilou also called for Pastor’s resignation.

Triantafilou released the following statement:

“It is with great sadness that I read media reports of Councilman Pastor’s arrest this morning on what is being reported as a bribery scandal. The Hamilton County Republican Party has zero tolerance for this kind of behavior. While Mr. Pastor is afforded the presumption of innocence and due process, he is not entitled to continue working for the citizens of Cincinnati as he sorts through whatever charges may be coming. Jeff should resign his position on City Council and make his family and his legal defense a top priority.”

Pastor described himself as a “New Age Republican” in January 2018 when he was sworn into office at the age of 34.