Juan Cespedes and the cost of not getting caught early
Sometimes it's best to learn you're bad at crime early in life. I would know.
When I was 19, as a sophomore at the University of Montana in 2007, I conspired, with six other stone-cold morons, to rob an interstate drug trafficker of roughly $100,000 of high-grade weed grown in Humboldt County, California.
I came into the plot by circumstance, and seeing that my drug dealer would get robbed anyway, I decided to participate in what I believed to be a non-violent scheme as an inside man.
The plan, as you might imagine, went awry. But, long story short, it ended with my name attached to a $100,000 arrest warrant that made the local paper’s front page.
It was the kind of mistake that could ruin your life, such as it is at that young of an age. But I was white and wasn’t near the crime scene. And though some people online will always tag me as the arrogant dickhead I was back then—I walked away from the situation being able to say I was never convicted of a crime.
I’m not proud of my actions despite never hiding from them. But, ironically, it’s the kind of wake-up call I realized I needed at that point in my life.
The robbery could have resulted in somebody’s death. But the second worse outcome would have been getting away with it.
Who knows what kind of gutter thinking that would have led me into? I can almost assuredly say that crew of losers would have tried the same scheme again on another unsuspecting snowboarder cosplaying as the Tony Montana of California weed in Montana.
In short, I am thankful I got caught. The consequences of my actions saved me from my stupidity.
It’s a lesson I couldn’t help but think about yesterday while reading about disgraced former First Energy lobbyist Juan Cespedes fulfilling his obligation to the federal government by testifying to his role in passing HB-6, the largest bribery scheme in state history that we know about at least.
Cespedes appeared in Cincinnati court and named names.
From Jessie Balmert and Laura Bischoff of dispatch.com:
Former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges’ relationships were critical to FirstEnergy’s efforts to block the anti-House Bill 6 referendum, former FirstEnergy Solutions lobbyist Juan Cespedes testified Tuesday.
Cespedes said the Akron-based company and its subsidiaries depended on Borges’ connections to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and GOP operative Tyler Fehrman to try to save House Bill 6 and its $1.3 billion bailout for nuclear plants.
Borges was tasked with convincing the two public officials that House Bill 6 was a tax and thus ineligible to be challenged at the ballot. And Borges was budgeted $25,000 to bribe Fehrman in exchange for details about how many signatures the anti-House Bill 6 effort had collected, Cespedes said.
“The idea is we would compensate Mr. Fehrman for information that was helpful,” said Cespedes, who added that it was Borges’ idea to seek information from Fehrman and Cespedes thought it was “clever.”
The first red flag for Cespedes should have been that he thought any scheme concocted by the bumbling Matt Borges should ever be considered “clever.” But that’s a dispatch for another day.
Still, seeing Cespedes eat shit in public was a long time coming. Because unlike me, Cespedes got away with the first idiotic scam he attempted.
From Ally Melnik of columbusmonthly.com in July 2020:
On Feb. 5, 2001, the Lantern published a front-page story questioning the use of undergraduate student government funds—specifically a $2,250 stipend given to the former chief of staff of Ohio State’s USG, Keller Blackburn, by then-President Robert “B.J.” Schuerger and then-Vice President Cespedes. The money was allegedly given to Blackburn from the executive branch’s discretionary funds without approval of student senators in the form of two checks—one for $1,000 and another for $1,250—for his work during the summer, fall and winter quarters.
However, the Lantern reported that on Dec. 14, 2000, the day both checks were cashed, 12 members of USG—including Blackburn, Cespedes and Schuerger—enjoyed an evening in Columbus eating at Mitchell’s Steakhouse, drinking Champagne and riding in a limousine.
The day this story broke, about 10,000 copies of the Lantern were stolen from stands across campus. This forced the Office of Student Affairs to investigate whether USG officials misused funds and then tried to cover their tracks by disposing of the papers.
About a week later on Feb. 13, The Columbus Dispatch reported that Schuerger asked for Blackburn and Cespedes to resign from their positions. Schuerger then accused Cespedes of leading the plot to remove the newspapers, to which Cespedes did not comment on.
The report notes that Cespedes got “sanctioned” for misappropriating funds. Those sanctions didn’t mean much because Cespedes still graduated from The Ohio State University with a finance degree and got a job with the Ohio Treasurer’s Office, where he worked for four years before starting the consulting firm that would eventually appear in the HB-6 indictment.
For every corrupt politician like Householder, there are five equally greedy and morally bankrupt “lobbyists” like Cespedes. Participating in a scheme like this was a walk in the park to him at this point in his career. And they would have gotten away with it, too, without the FBI stumbling ass-first into the investigation.
But maybe, had Juan actually suffered consequences for running that first $1,000 scheme—perhaps he would have gotten the wake-up call he needed to take a long, reflective look at the man in the mirror and what kind of he life he wanted to lead.
He didn’t. And now look at him, almost 20 years later.
From Jake Zuckerman of cleveland.com:
Defense attorney Steve Bradley on Monday, through a series of questions to former FirstEnergy Solutions lobbyist Juan Cespedes, drew out new details of the former lobbyist’s guilty plea with the U.S. Department of Justice. Pending his testimony, prosecutors will recommend to a federal judge that Cespedes serve between zero and six months in prison.
Bradley told the jury that such and arrangement with prosecutors means “the government” will be the arbiter of whether Cespedes tells the “truth” – emphasizing and repeating both terms to suggest a prosecutorial overreach.
Cespedes said all he needs to do is stick to the facts and state what he saw and what he heard, not that which might please the prosecution.
“There’s only one truth in these matters,” he said.
Cespedes has already transferred ownership of his $700,000 house (don’t let anyone ever tell you crime doesn’t pay) to a trust in his name, likely to avoid any forfeiture liability that might come from whatever sentence the robed pervert presiding over his case decides his compliance is worth.
It might seem like Cespedes got away with it. And considering he won’t die in federal prison, he did.
But even six months in prison would be a long time. And given his connection to this case, his days of greasing corrupt deals in the free-for-all hogpen that is Ohio politics are over. And given that guys like Cespedes always spend above their means, he’ll soon be pining for the days of ripping his college off for a free steak dinner and a ride in a limousine.
It’s a fate better than he deserves. But that’s how justice works in Ohio. It’s hard even to muster anger about a greedy little slimeball like Cespedes anymore.
Guys like him are like street-level drug dealers—the kingpins replace them almost instantly when they fall.
Good to know Ohio cant be pissed with a simple background check on job applicants - but I bet JC had a family connection or he was a half-assed attempt at a DEI hire…