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State lawmaker faces bribery charges
By Marc Kovac
COLUMBUS
A state lawmaker was indicted Tuesday on bribery charges after accepting trips and campaign cash from undercover investigators.
Rep. W. Carlton Weddington, a Democrat from Columbus, faces single counts of bribery, election falsification and filing a false ethics disclosure form, all uncovered as part of a lengthy sting.
Weddington turned himself in to law enforcement Tuesday afternoon near the Statehouse and faces an initial court appearance later this week. He also resigned his seat in the Ohio House, effective immediately.
The indictment was announced by Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien and representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. According to documents and information they presented during a press conference in Columbus, Weddington accepted all-expenses-paid trips to Napa Valley, Calif., in late January 2011 and Miami in mid-April, along with cash and checks for his campaign coffers. All were offered by the FBI, via investigators pretending to represent an unnamed business entity.
The total value of the bribes was about $16,000, and Weddington subsequently failed to record the value of those items on his campaign finance and state ethics forms.
He was contacted by the FBI earlier this year after filing the latter and has been cooperating with investigators.
Weddington allegedly offered to introduce legislation and provided the FBI with a draft press-release announcing proposed law changes.
Investigators declined to comment on the nature of the legislation, though there are indications that Weddington came to prosecutors’ attention during the statehouse debate on law changes related to the payday-lending industry.
He faces more than four years in prison, and O’Brien said he would be pursuing some level of incarceration.
Prosecutors said there are additional criminal charges that have not been brought against Weddington at this time, based on his cooperation with investigators.
They also said their investigation was ongoing, leaving open the door for future indictments against others involved in comparable activities.
Weddington was in his second term in the Ohio House and was seeking a third after securing the Democratic nomination earlier this month to run in November. He previously was a member of the Columbus city schools board of education, and he has served as the secretary of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus’ political action committee.
Republican House Speaker Bill Batchelder said he did not know the specifics of Weddington’s indictment but called any such charges against a sitting lawmaker “difficult” for the entire body.
“When it happens, it brings down [censure] on all of the members of the legislature,” Batchelder said.
Minority House Leader Armond Budish, a Democrat from the Cleveland area, added in a released statement, “These are very serious and very shocking allegations. Any severe breach of the public trust, as this may be, deserves the most thorough and serious treatment by law enforcement. ... Our prayers are with the Weddington family.”