Rooster in Review: Perverts of a feather
The Columbus Partnership's upcoming fundraiser for notorious conman Vivek Ramaswamy will feature Howard Lee Mosbacker, a New Albany CEO accused of tax evasion and serial sexual misconduct.
The Rooster has been pounding the drum on the Columbus Partnership’s upcoming fundraiser—orchestrated by Wexner World lobbyist Bill Byers—for the notorious conman Vivek Ramaswamy.
Ramaswamy’s campaign touts “lower costs and bigger paychecks” despite him being an admittedly high-class prostitute for the various capitalist interests that have looted Ohio and America for the past 45 years.
In Ramaswamy’s defense, Ohio’s hog voters—that is, primarily the rural stooges that think they’re somehow owning the city slickers and their tall buildings by voting Republican—have shown over the last 20 years that they can’t get enough of the slop.
But what Ramaswamy means is lower costs and bigger paychecks for Central Ohio’s Epstein class, which funds his campaign alongside school privatization magnate Carl Yass, who just deposited his second $10 million check into Ramaswamy’s campaign despite residing in Pennsylvania.
But the fundraiser will also feature lesser-known, albeit still cloying, peverts desperate to attach themselves to an ostensibly surefire political campaign that’s for sale to the highest bidder.
Listed on the invite as a co-sponsor is Howard Lee Mosbacker, the self-described co-founder and CEO of “Cyrannus,” a New Albany-based startup attempting to “reinvent the venture ecosystem.”
A former Cyrannus employee is currently suing Mosbacker in the Franklin County Court of Pleas for serial sexual harassment, sextortion, and tax evasion.
Case 26 CV 001029:
Mosbacker misclassified his Chief of Staff, with an annualized salary of $120,000, as an independent contractor to avoid payroll taxes and healthcare benefits.
He paid her through “a combination of wires, Venmo payments, cash and payments from both personal and business accounts, frequently leaving her significantly behind on wages owed.”
Mosbacker “repeatedly injected sexualized comments, personal advances and boundary-crossing communications into the same channels used to assign work..”
Mosbacker “routinely placed Paintiff in sexual environments tied to work, including adult-themed entertainment venues, intimate spa and massage appointments, strip clubs, and late-night social settings during business and travel conferences.”
He “made demeaning and sexualized comments about plaintiff’s appearance, expressed jealousy and personal control over her dating life, and requested personal or sexualized images.”
In Sept. 2025, at the New Albany Country Club, Mosbacker told her that she had “two options” for her future: “(a) enter a romantic relationship with him or (b) accept a formal employment contract.”
Mosbacker pressured the plaintiff “to choose the romantic relationship, promised personal financial support and a future together, and discussed leaving his wife.”
Coincidentally enough, Vanessa Mosbacker is listed alongside her husband on the flyer for the Ramaswamy fundraiser.
And sure, these are allegations from one woman that have yet to be fully litigated in court, even if Mosbacker will most likely cut a check to make these problems go away.
However, this news doesn’t appear to have surprised those familiar with Mosbacker’s antics going back years.
Mosbacker is a “world-class piece of shit,” said a tipster.
“He also fucked over a Black female entrepreneur who won a contest at Ohio Wesleyan. The university paid to avoid backlash. Lee refused to take accountability.”
He’s a “bigger turd than most realize,” said one trusted source.
“I met him a couple of times through a mutual friend. He’s rich from patents for tech (lasers, I think) but an absolute scumbag.”
The source claimed to have ended the association with Mosbacker when he started posting “racist and misogynistic crap” on Facebook and LinkedIn.
According to public records, Howard and his wife have donated a total of $38,484.22 to Ramaswamy’s campaign since April 2025—apparently with more on the way next week.
But this is another example of Ramaswamy’s team willing to take money from anyone, even abortion doctors once targeted by insane Christian fundamentalists.
That Mosbacker would find himself in the orbit of the Columbus Partnership and Bill Byers isn’t a surprise, either. These guys are smart enough to read the political tea leaves, even in Ohio.
Donald Trump gets more unpopular every day, a trend that probably won’t be reversed between now and November. The Ohio Republican Party hitched itself to a bizarre, out-of-touch snake oil huckster in subservience to that increasingly unpopular war criminal.
Thankfully for the Epstein class, campaign finance laws have never made it easier for them to exert outsized influence on our elections. Couple that with a dilapidated and docile ownership class among the state’s once-thriving media apparatus, and you start to understand how we arrived in our current predicament. At least a little bit.
If you know anything about Mosbacker’s misdeeds, please submit that information anonymously through the Dirtbox.
We do things differently here at The Rooster. We are a 100% reader-supported publication, meaning that corporate sponsors or leathery benefactors don’t dictate our coverage.
The political class hates us because they can’t go crying to an octogenarian boss about our “unfair” coverage, because we take pride in knowing how to hit these perverts where it hurts.
This week in Ohio Man…
As I have written before, I’m from a little place called Marion, the City of Kings, where street monikers and nom de plumes are commonplace. It’s much easier to remember a guy named “Fuzzy Slippers” than the 100th “Steve” you’ve met on your travels in the cosmic game of life.
But if you’re a criminal of any persuasion, you would probably be wise to choose a more humble sobriquet than “King Dinero,” as one Cleveland man found out the hard way this week.
From Nikki Gasiewiski of cleveland19.com:
CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - Darren Lassiter of Cleveland, also referred to as “King Dinero,” was sentenced to life in prison Thursday morning.
Lassiter, previously featured on Cuyahoga’s Most Wanted was found guilty of 13 charges last month, including trafficking, rape and prostitution.
In a press release provided by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, Lassiter is described as having “targeted and controlled four victims through physical and sexual violence.”
Kudos to Dusty Dave Yost for the conviction, but it would be nice to have an Attorney General also concerned with “targeted and controlled … physical and sexual violence” as it pertains to Central Ohio’s Epstein class.
Alas!
This week in The Rooster…
It was another week of brisk business for Rooster Worldwide LLC in the quest to deliver the kind of news you won’t read anywhere else in the polluted backwater outpost that we are unfortunate enough to call home.
They’ll shove you into the wood chipper in the pursuit of power. An influential Republican called DraftKings “the most powerful entity in state politics at the moment.” It’s hard to disagree.
What public-private partnership looks like in Columbus. It’s no partnership at all, but rather the private sector suborning local government to its interests.
When is it not about capitalism at the Statehouse? State Reps. Tex Fischer and Adam Bird offer dueling views on high school NIL. Plus another dynamite dispatch from education correspondant Gretta Gallows.
Bill Byers: The Statehouse lobbyist that binds Central Ohio’s Epstein class. Byers is the powerful common thread from Republican billionaires like Jimmy Haslam and Leslie Wexner to Columbus Democratic leaders like Mayor Suburbs and City Attorney Zach Klein.
We’ll do it at the same time and place next week.
Until then… stay frosty, my friends!
THOSE WMDs. The moral calculations of a billionaire… Four months as a private prison guard… When trauma becomes trope… Blowing in the wind: How Nordic companies made electricity free… Anger and heartbreak on Denver’s Bus No. 15.