Corruption case tipster talks about wearing a wire
Tyler Fehrman wore a dark blue baseball cap with an FBI recording device tucked into the brim to a meeting with former Ohio Republican Party Chair Matt Borges.
“I’ll be really honest, it was probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever done,” Fehrman said. “It’s not just awkward. It’s terrifying.”
But that audio recording from 2019 helped federal prosecutors convict Borges and former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder of federal racketeering conspiracy this week. And Fehrman said he has no regrets.
The two former Ohio political heavyweights were found guilt of accepting and offering bribes in order to bail out two nuclear power plants owned by Akron-based Firstenergy. The plan was to pass a law tacking on fees to utility customers that would raise more than $1 billion over seven years. In exchange, the two men and three others received more than $61 million.
Borges, who Fehrman met with on multiple occasions, was convicted of offering him $15,000 of that money in exchange for inside information into a campaign allow voters to block the implementation of that bailout.
Here’s an abridged version of Fehrman’s interview with the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau.
Staver: How did Borges first approach you about your work with the HB 6 repeal campaign?
Fehrman: I talked to Matt about joining the repeal campaign before I took it. He was not just a close friend of mine but a mentor, and I knew he was going to be on the opposite side. I didn’t want to damage either our professional or personal relationship.
I wanted to make sure we would be fine regardless, and he said, “Oh no, that’s politics. That’s the way things work being on opposite sides sometimes, and that’s OK.”
Staver: So, you take the job with the repeal campaign, and then he invites you out for coffee, right?
Fehrman: That wasn’t out of the ordinary. We met at his office or for lunch together on a somewhat regular basis.
Staver: What happens when you two sit down?
Fehrman: He literally proceeded to tell me that if I would provide him with inside information about the number of signatures being collected, the locations of the people collecting the signatures being collected and other information, then he would make it worth my while.
He asked how much I had left to pay off on my car. He asked about child support arrears that he knew that I owed from a period of unemployment that I had experienced. He knew personal details about my financial situation and said, “We can take care of all of those things. I just need you to provide me with inside information about what’s going on.”
And that didn’t sit right with me. I immediately felt very, very violated. This is somebody I looked up to and trusted and had built a good relationship with. And he was asking me to do something that I immediately knew was wrong.
Staver: And then you called the FBI? Fehrman: I was actually provided with the number for the special agent in
charge (Blane Wetzel) by my friend. I’m not sure how he had obtained it.
It was a little bizarre. I called it and had no idea who was on the other end. I just gave kind of a high-level overview of the conversation I had just had, and Agent Wetzel responded with can you meet me tomorrow, and I said yes.
Staver: Does he ask you to wear a wire at that meeting?
Fehrman: Well, I had responded to Matt after our conversation and let him know that my integrity was not for sale. And I wouldn’t be the person he had invested time and energy into mentoring if I took him up on that offer. And he responded with, “Don’t ever tell anyone about this conversation.”
And so, when I met with Special Agent Wetzel, the request was made at the end of the meeting that if you are willing, we would like for you to re-approach him about this conversation and record your interactions with him.
And honestly, I said yes. I was willing to do it because I knew that what was taking place was just so patently wrong. I got into politics, got into this line of work to try to do the right thing, and just walking away for me was not an option.
Staver: So, is it like the television show The Sopranos? Do they strap a wire onto your chest?
Fehrman: That honestly was my first concern. If I wear a wire for the FBI, they are going to have to like tape me up and do all this stuff.
And it turned out that’s not what it was at all.
I had two devices at different points. One was a key fob. It looked like the key fob that I had for my car, and the instruction was to set my keys on the table when I sat down at the meeting.
In other instances, I had a ball cap. So, I’m bald, and especially when it’s hot and sunny out, I wear a ball cap. I wore a dark blue Under Armour ball cap most days. And one day, the FBI had a dark blue Under Armour ball cap for me and there was a device hidden underneath the bill in the lining of the hat.
I felt very safe. I was never put in a position where they were going to notice a wire or pat me down for some reason and feel it.
Staver: Did the FBI give you any
training or preparation for acting natural while wearing a wire?
Fehrman: No, they didn’t. They were encouraging certainly and said just try to do your best and listen and let him talk and let him lead the conversation.
I’ll be really honest, it was probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. It’s not just awkward. It’s terrifying in a lot of ways, especially with some of the conversations that had taken place. I felt like I was being strong-armed or threatened.
Staver: During the trial you said Borges made an off-color joke about blowing up your house if you betrayed him, right?
Fehrman: I’ll be honest, I don’t think it was a joke at all. I didn’t take it that way when he said it toward the end of one of our meetings. He said, “If you’re messing with us, we’ll blow up your house.”
That was a moment just sort of a cold chill ran through me. I will never forget it because at that point, we were past joking around. In politics, there’s a lot of dark humor, but we were past that point.
I took it extremely seriously. The FBI did as well. The debrief after that meeting, they asked me, “Are you alright?” And I was rattled. They said, “We take that seriously and so should you.”
And that really changed the way things felt even more. It made a hard situation even worse.
Staver: About a year after you first start wearing a wire for the FBI, Borges is arrested and the FBI releases a long, detailed document outlining its claims against him and the four other men. It becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly that you’re the unnamed informant. What was that day like for you?
Fehrman: I was at the dentist actually that morning and my phone started blowing up. People started calling, emailing and texting to see if I was alright. It was, it was overwhelming.
Staver: Now that you’ve testified and your role, in this case, is behind you, how do you feel about it?
I’m glad to be done with my portion of it, but I’m also, truthfully, I’m really relieved to be able to tell my story. I’ve spent several years now having to remain quiet because of my role. And while Matt Borges and others went on public media campaigns to try and besmirch my name and demand my character, I had to stay quiet.
Staver: Knowing what you know now, would you do it again?
Fehrman: It was one of the scariest points of my life, but on this end, truly knowing and believing that I did the right thing when I had the opportunity, I would do it again.
With the way things are in the world, especially in the political realm, what I did should not be special; it should be the norm. People should be willing to step up and do the right thing.
Anna Staver is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.