CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Attorneys for FirstEnergy shareholders have named two former executives, Michael Dowling and Chuck Jones, as the orchestrators of House Bill 6 bribes.
We’re asking why they have not been charged on Today in Ohio.
Listen online here. See the automated transcript at the bottom of the post.
Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editor Leila Atassi, editorial board member Lisa Garvin and content director Laura Johnston.
You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up for free by sending a text to 216-868-4802.
Here are the questions we’re answering today:
We finally have the answer that we have long suspected. Who were the honchos at FirstEnergy who signed off on the bribes that created the biggest scandal in Ohio Statehouse history and completely corrupted the government at the expense of the people?
Cleveland has seen an outsize share of fatal accidents resulting from drivers getting on highways in the wrong direction, and now we have a new tool to battle such crashes. What is it, and where will it be used?
What were the highlights of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s State of the State Address Wednesday?
Marcia Fudge, head of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, is on the warpath about how appraisals for homes owned by Black people are lower than for similar homes owned by white people. What does she mean to do about it?
Perhaps the best known example of the damage caused by the May 30, 2020 riot in downtown Cleveland was the wrecking of Colossal Cupcakes. On Wednesday, the bill came due for the man who did the wrecking. What was it?
What’s an orphan gas or oil well, and how many do we have in Cuyahoga County that might be problematic?
Have the Cleveland Browns responded to the harsh criticism they received this week over the trade for quarterback Deshaun Watson, who faces 22 lawsuits accusing him of sexual assault and misconduct?
What killed 15 Canada geese around Lower Lake in Shaker Heights, and should we be worried?
What were the questions people had to answer in the 1950 Census, for which all records are being released on April 1. Every 10 years, we get a batch of data, which genealogists treasure. What will we learn this time?
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Read the automated transcript below:
Chris: [00:00:00] Well, the legislative races have been pulled off the may primary, even though the may primary is still on why won’t the Ohio legislature do the smart thing and postpone the election until we understand where all the lines will be. It’s today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the plain dealer.
I’m Chris Quinn with the cast to regulars, Lisa Garvin and Layla Tassie, Laura Johnston it’s Thursday, one more day of the workweek for you.
Lisa: Yeah. Chris is always working
Laura: even when he’s on vacation.
Chris: Yeah, just the podcast because people like the podcast let’s get started. We got a good one to begin. We finally have the answer that we have launched. Good. Who were the honchos at first energy who signed off on the bribes that created the biggest scandal in Ohio state house history and completely corrupted the government at the expense of [00:01:00] the people, Layla, their names are now public.
Yeah, I think
Leila: we need like a drum roll coming through attorneys, reversed energy corporation shareholders on Wednesday. Identified former first energy CEO, Charles Jones, and Michael Dowling, who had led the company’s lobbying efforts as the two who had come up with the scheme to pay off public officials in exchange for the favorable legislation and the regulatory action.
These disclosures happened in filings related to the lawsuit that was filed by investors on behalf of the company. Against the utilities, directors and officers that alleging a lack of oversight that led to the bribery scandal, the attorneys for the investors named Jones and Dowling after us district, judge John Adams had given them a noon, Wednesday deadline to cough up the names of the people who paid the bribes in the tainted legislation.
Adams issued the order because the attorneys had attempted to sidestep his questions by claiming the [00:02:00] confidentiality of the mediation. So basically the attorneys are saying Jones and Dowling are executives one and two in the deferred prosecution agreement that was filed against first energy last July, in which the company copped to doing the bad thing and said to bad guys of the company pushed the payment.
Chris: So it gets the question one, cheers to judge Adams for insisting this be done. He represented the public, the taxpayers pay a salary. Finally, almost two years in these, these guys have been identified. It’s fascinating to me that the rich guys are the ones that have evaded all the notice and the charging the politicians had been charged, but the filthy rich guys who sat at the top of the utility.
Remain free and clear justice is not being served. I don’t know why the federal prosecutors are sitting on this, but that’s the question. Why, if everybody now knows they were the guys and they have the company admitting it was bribery aren’t they [00:03:00] indicted Layla, you covered courts for some years. You saw a lot of charges filed against people on much more flimsy evidence than this.
Leila: Yeah, I don’t understand it either. I mean, they’re just kind of like, yeah, we didn’t know wrongdoing there. Their attorneys are saying no nothing to see here, but I mean the prosecution agreement lays it out. It’s kind of gift wrapped here. It, it, it suggested that the two former officials who we now know who they are worked for months to get householders help from his push to speakership, to the hundreds of thousands of dollars in regulatory payments, they called and texted numerous times.
About the legislation, according to this agreement, and then, you know, the Ohio house selected householders speaker, and then the prosecution agreement shows a householder texted Jones and said, thanks for everything. It was historic. I mean the same day, you know, another person texted Jones and Dowling big win in the Ohio speaker vote.
I mean, this, there it’s gift wrapped. I just don’t [00:04:00] understand, uh, what is the, you know what, what’s, what’s holding it up. It’s
Chris: just it’s breeding sentences because I am hearing from people in the public that now believe they won’t be charged that their money talks and that they, that justice is not blind to the cash and the riches.
Um, and they’re they sending notes saying we don’t get it. I mean, you got a bunch of politicians who are charged and good, they should be, but what kind of justice system do you have in this country when somebody. Filthy rich just gets out of it. So, I mean, it, it, it, I, in the beginning, when people said, do you expect their recharges?
It was like, of course we expect we’ll be charges. The company’s pleaded guilty. And now I’m saying, I don’t know, the federal, the new federal prosecutor just doesn’t seem like he’s that interested in this case or bringing people to justice, the trial.
Leila: I do feel like you see that. At court, like how much justice can you afford?
You know, can you, I mean, you can often buy your way [00:05:00] out of a lot of things, but with such a high profile case, you would think that it would be so obvious that you’re letting these guys skate. Yeah. And it’s 20 months
Chris: later, it’s 20 months since this dented the public consciousness with the rate of Larry householders home, which means the investigation is more than two years old.
And yet the, the, the, I don’t know, I don’t even know who the prosecutor is down there since Dave left. And they’re probably glad I can’t think of their name because they’re doing a terrible job and this something should change. They are breeding. A cynicism about the justice system in Ohio, because they’re not bringing these people to account.
They claim they’re innocent. The only way they’re going to be able to prove this, go to court, you know, you want to go in and get a jury to buy that you didn’t bride people, even though your company says you did go ahead. Good luck to you, but let’s get it before a jury. Before time expires on this thing.
I mean, there’s a statute of [00:06:00] limitations isn’t there. So I guess the prosecutors may look to let that expire and go oopsy. You’re listening to today in Ohio. Cleveland has seen an outside share of fatal accidents, resulting from drivers, getting on highways in the wrong direction. And now we have a new tool to battle such crashes.
Lisa, I’ve always been baffled by how this can happen. So often it’s pretty difficult to get on the highway in the wrong direction, but in multiple spots in the Cleveland area, we do it. What is this new tool and where will they be?
Lisa: Yeah, the Ohio department of transportation is installing a system of sensors.
That sense when a vehicle is going the wrong way on an entrance ramp or an exit ramp. And so what happens when they detect that two wrong way, signs bordered with flashing lights will flash, you know, very quickly to let them know they’re going the wrong way. If they ignore that there is a second detector further down the ramp that triggers a do not [00:07:00] enter and wrong way signs that also flashed with red lights to alert people to what they’re doing.
And as this happens, the sensors send an alert to ODAT traffic management center in Columbus, which then alerts local law enforcement officers to be aware that somebody might be going down the freeway the wrong way here in the Cleveland area, there’ll be installed along 22 miles. 71. And between west 150th street and east 140th streets.
There’ll be 50 detection devices at 25 locations. Cause we have two on each ramp and they were, they chose this area based on a report of wrong way crashes from 2016 to 2019. And interestingly enough, As part of this study, they also calculated the number of bars and restaurants near exit ramps to, you know, because people obviously leaving a bar drunk might get on and go the wrong way.
Chris: Well, the worst one seems to be that west 25th street entrance to the chore way. I [00:08:00] mean, it seems like we’ve had that happen a lot. And I guess if you’re you’re coming at that from the north, that can seem confusing because there’s, it’s a left turn. Yeah, I guess people just get confused, especially as you said, if they’ve been drinking.
Um, and once they’re up there, they’re going 60, 70, 75 miles an hour with oncoming traffic at the same speed. So when there is a crash, nobody walks away from that. These are devastating crashes, and I can’t imagine anything more frightening when you’re rolling down on the highway. At 65, 70 miles an hour to see a car coming straight at you, the opposite direction, that’s gotta be they
Leila: better.
They better make these signs really big and really bright. I mean, because these folks are most of the time pretty hammered. And you know, if they’re going to just like cruise right on past it, it’s just not going to register. I, I hope that they, they thought they were very thoughtful in the design of these signs.
Yeah. It
Lisa: looks like there. Yeah. I saw some video of [00:09:00] it yesterday. It’s it’s in use somewhere else in Ohio and they looked like the signs are the same size, but it looks like they’ve been placed higher. And then these lights, like every second, I mean, so I was like blank, blank, blank, blank. You know, these red lights around these signs saying, do not enter wrong way.
Leila: Readable at night. Like you can read the signs.
Lisa: Clearly, I don’t know. Well, I don’t know. I think the
Laura: flashing lights headlights on.
Chris: Well let’s hope because what, what we have now is not working the signage doesn’t work, people keep doing it. So let’s hope that they’ve done the science and that this will reduce it.
I do like the idea of the sensors as well as a backup so that if you do get the sense, you might be able to get a patrol car up there before the accident happens. There’s not a whole lot of time though. I mean, the trick is keeping them off to begin with. You’re listening to today in Ohio. Okay, Laura, what were the highlights of Ohio?
Governor Mike DeWine, state of the state address? Wednesday, if we can [00:10:00] say anything he said was actually a highlight. Yeah.
Laura: I mean, the enthusiasm in your voice might be a little misplaced because, um, I listened to the entire thing. I didn’t really take away anything that I would say, oh, that was really a highlight.
But, um, he was big on the future. He repeated this refrain that he sees in Ohio where, and he kept saying that I see in Ohio where, and it sounded like a children’s book, like goodnight, Ohio. Like it was big on vision. It was short on specifics. Um, he said we have opportunities before us that come once in a lifetime.
So we must seize that Ohio. This is our. Like our moment for, I don’t know. He, he did focus on mental health support. He wants in Ohio where mental health is not, um, looked down on that people are getting the help they need that they’re not criminalized for it. Obviously you talked about kids and he talked a lot about highway safety and, and some gun reforms though.
He got. Call them reforms and he didn’t bring up his strong Ohio gun [00:11:00] plan that he had originally, um, tried to get the legislature to
Chris: support. Yeah, I think these are much more interesting in the first year of a new governor, because they’re laying out a vision that they have for the state, which he did back three, three years ago.
But now he’s running for reelection. He has shown that he’s very afraid. Of the assault he’s getting from the far. Right. And so he’s done things that don’t really fit with what he said that first year. I mean, he talked about plenty of bad, his gun safe plan, but then he signed the bill that wipes out the need for a permit to carry a concealed weapon, uh, and really duct discussing it and did not discuss it yesterday.
So yeah, there
Laura: weren’t a lot of things that you could say were controversial or too. The stand on anything he called for a permanent state funding of police training. Um, he, he doesn’t have anything introduced just like the mental health, but how could you say anything against giving care for mental health or making sure that your police [00:12:00] are well-trained or making sure that kids have, you know, the mentorships that they need to grow up with support?
I mean, all of these things. Hopefully everybody could get behind. He did say he wanted to work with lawmakers on an investment program for 32 Appalachian counties in Southwestern, Ontario, or Southwest Southeastern Ohio, a comparatively poor part of the state. And that would focus on downtown redevelopment, expanding broadband and workforce development.
So student wellness in schools and anti addiction programs, that was about the most specifics I think. I heard from DeWine and he talks about everything like, oh, he did bring up the state fair, which was not an Andrew Tobias’s, um, state of the state. Bingo, where you, like, if you mentioned Fran, you get to, you know, put down your bingo, see how fast you can get that.
Um, but then he pivoted to highway safety and I was like, oh, I did not see this. Distracted driving
Chris: highways. We should point out that for much of his term, [00:13:00] when he spoke to Ohio, it was with questions from reporters, challenging him on issues that all those wine with the wines were a wonderful way. For people to hear him answer things that could make them uncomfortable.
This was not that this was him writing a speech, giving a speech while he’s campaigning for another run. So it did not have much of a flare that we saw in those wine with the wine sessions.
Leila: You should have just showed up with a big old box of guns, handing them out
Laura: it by saying he was planting a Dogwood tree on the capital line as a symbol of Ohio’s future. I mean, Three years into tissue to
Leila: the
Chris: danger of that is there is a, uh, uh, illness that hits Ohio Dogwood trees. I had one and it killed it. There, there are healthy Dogwood trees in, [00:14:00] in Ohio, but it’s a risky thing to plant because if that’s your symbol for the future and it gets hit by that
Laura: the statehouse landscapers are on that Dogwood tree all the time.
Making sure it’s a well.
Lisa: Th there’s a religious significance to Dogwood too, because the red tips of the four pedals are said to S you know, signify the stigmata. So there might be religious.
Laura: I always heard that it’s an easy, you know, of course, Easter with rebirth or everything, but, um, I thought it was interesting how much he concentrated on the future, considering this.
You know, he’d been in office for three years. He didn’t do a lot of pointing at successes of the past, other than Intel, which is very
Chris: recent. All right. I would argue this conversation about the state of the state is more interesting than the actual state of the state. You are listening
Laura: to commentary
Chris: today in Ohio.
Marcia fudge head of the us department of housing and urban development is on the warpath about how our proposals for homes owned by black people are [00:15:00] lower than for similar homes owned by white people. Layla. The first time I had any education about this issue was when Eric Foster wrote a horrifying column about how, how he had to take any son.
That the owners of his house were black before he put it up for sale. This is a much bigger issue, especially in Northeast, Ohio and Marcia fudge. The former Northeast, Ohio Congresswoman really wants to end it. What, uh, what did she say yesterday? It’s funny. You
Leila: should bring up Eric’s column. Cause that is the first thing I thought of, uh, when I read this story.
And it opened with the, the, um, their recounting of a very similar story that somebody told at this, at this hearing at, at the white house. So a September report from Freddie Mac found. Appraisals for home purchases and majority black and majority Latino neighborhoods, or roughly twice as likely to result in a value below the amount of buyer was willing to pay for the property compared to appraisals in [00:16:00] predominantly white neighborhoods, a February study from Fannie Mae found that white owned homes are much more likely than black owned homes to be appraised at values that exceeded.
Algorithmic predictions. And Marcia fudge said that her own home in Warrensville Heights is undervalued because it’s in a black community. And she said, she’s losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity because of bias and the appraisal process. So at this white house event, she laid out her plan to end that racial bias and appraisals and the report of her inter-agency task force on property appraisal and valuation equity calls for agent federal agencies.
To enhance oversight over the appraisal industry to identify better and redress discriminatory appraisals. It also encourages providing homeowners and home buyers with information on effective steps that they can take when they receive a lower than expected valuation, cultivating better training among appraisers and making efforts to diversify the profession.
That is pretty [00:17:00] much almost a hundred percent white. A task force action plan lays out measures to remove unnecessary educational and experience requirements that make it very difficult for underrepresented groups to become appraisers and a need to strengthen anti-biased fair housing and fair lending training of existing appraisers and very interesting.
The action plan also calls for insurance. The algorithms that appraisers use don’t rely on biased data that could replicate past discrimination. And it calls for developing an aggregated database of federal praises data to better study and understand and address appraisal bias. So, yeah.
Chris: Well, let me ask this though, because appraisals are largely supposed to be based on market value.
And according to Eric’s column, his real estate, people told him you won’t get as higher price for your home. If you, if there are signs that it’s owned by [00:18:00] black owners. So, so forget the appraisal part, the price of the house that the market will bear isn’t as high. If, if the buyer knows the owner is black, how do you deal with that?
I don’t know,
Leila: but, but you know, there, this, uh, there was one homeowner who, uh, offered testimony very similar to Eric’s, who he said that he and his wife wanted to expand their home in upper Arlington, Ohio. And they, you know, during the pandemic and the, the banks that they were seeking, these home equity loans from.
Kicking back these super low estimates and they were told, you know, you need to quote whitewash your home. And he ended up taking his children away from his home while they appraise this house. And they got a value $225,000 higher than was initially provided with. Stunning. And that, you know, that come, you know, along with Eric story of how he found himself doing [00:19:00] the exact same thing and found that his home sold for higher than he initially thought, you know, initially he was told it would sell for, um, really is, is, uh, you know, supports that, that, uh, You know what these, the findings of the study say it’s absolutely stunning.
Chris: Well, it was one Eric’s column was one of the most heart crushing columns. I think I’ve ever read. I just, it breaks your heart to, to read that and good for Marcia fudge, trying to get ahead of this, but there’s more work to be done because the market itself, if buyers at large are offering less money for such a bogus reason, it seems like there’s a lot of public education that needs to be done.
Senator
Leila: Sherrod brown who chairs the Senate committee committee on banking, housing and urban affairs is going to follow up with a hearing today on strengthening oversight and equity in the appraisal process. So one more step happening this week. I,
Laura: I just, I feel so for these homeowners, because it is hard enough to sell your house, right?
It’s a [00:20:00] very difficult, very stressful, frustrating process, and to have to change everything about it, because you’re trying to appeal to the bias of. Unknown homeowners. Like that’s just really sad.
Chris: Okay. You’re listening to today in Ohio, perhaps the best known example of the damage caused by the May 30th, 2020 rights in downtown Cleveland was the wrecking of colossal cupcakes on Wednesday.
The bill came due for the man who did that wrecking Lisa.
Lisa: 24 year old Tundra, Buchanan will serve four years in federal prison for the damage he did and the robbery of colossal cupcakes. During the protests on May 30th, that quickly turned into riots. This was May 30th, 2020. Prosecutors are also seeking $260,000 in restitution.
The owner of colossal cupcake said it took 10. To fix all the damage in her store was closed during that time. Um, us [00:21:00] district, judge, Donald Nugent, set a hearing for May 11th to consider the damage amount. Um, you can, it was of course convicted on December 1st of robbery and obstruction of justice. He is the first person to be tried in connection with the May 30th incident.
Um, and there was actually, you know, Pretty clear. It was him. I mean, there was a photo on the front page of the plain dealer and on cleveland.com that showed him brandishing a stool and breaking in the front window of colossal cupcakes. But he broke in and entered the store. There were employees there, they were working, they ran to the back.
Themselves in a bathroom. And then he used a stool from the store, the stool in the photo to break a second window. And when he did that, a bunch of looters came into colossal cupcakes and just walked out with it, whatever they could carry.
Chris: Yeah. He’s one of the people that they could identify. I think, I don’t know that anybody ever was charged for what happened in the Heinen’s downtown.
That place was completely trashed as well. Uh, and, and there, there are some, and we were [00:22:00] talking about it on your editorial board, uh, a month or so ago. That believe that the riders who did the damage were not being charged or were escaping justice, which just isn’t true. They worked very hard to try to identify them and bring those.
They could identify to justice. And he’s one of the better known because of that photo with the stool in his hands. Uh, so he’s going away to prison and I imagine there’ll be a few more after. Although,
Lisa: just to, just as a little end note here you can. And when, you know, at the sentencing says, you know, he’s quote, I still have no idea what got into me on quote and he’s terribly remorseful.
Well,
Chris: I mean, I think part of what got into people was the way the police responded to the protesters. I mean, they start. Firing upon them with less than lethal projectiles, which, you know, we’ve documented heightened the, the intensity of the passions. It’s the, the police [00:23:00] response to this thing was an utter failure.
They weren’t ready. They hadn’t done the intelligence and helped exacerbate things and make it get out of control. There’s no excuse though, for picking up the stools, smashing in a window and terrorizing people inside the store. I
Laura: agree, but can I just point out four years and obviously a whole lot of scrutiny.
And then what we talked about earlier, Chuck Jones, first energy Sam Rendazo like does not feel like a fair judge.
Chris: Right. That’s a great point, Barra. I mean, those th they completely corrupted the state government system to get rich and they’re sitting at home completely unfettered by even a charge yet.
It says everything about the justice system you’re listening to today in Ohio. What’s an orphan DAS or oil. Well, and how many do we have in Cuyahoga county? And why might that be a problem? Laura? You’re our environmental person.
Laura: This is a fascinating story from Peter Kraus. I had no [00:24:00] idea how many orphan Wells we have and that’s a well, that’s no longer producing, but no idea.
How old it is or who is responsible for it, which is really disconcerting, right. But there’s about 330 Wells of that in Cuyahoga county, a bunch more in the surrounding areas. Some of them go back to the days of John D Rockefeller and standard oil. The state created this orphan well program in 1976. So since then, we’ve been much better about knowing where the Wells are, but there was a house in Westlake that literally is five.
Th the walls of the house from an orphan? Well, so the us department of the interior is, uh, is providing billions of dollars in grants to plug Wells across the country. And Ohio could see up to $634 million through 2035 to deal with this. All right. Let me
Chris: ask you a questions. You can’t answer it. So if there’s, well, his is 15 feet or five feet away from my house is gas and oil coming out of it.
I mean, if it’s
Laura: there could be, there could be immediate risk. And if [00:25:00] you have a strong leak of oil and gas, if you have an odor, you could plug that in an emergency basis. But a lot of these are not. Kids cannot fall down them. They’re like five inches across. Uh, but the Wells are graded and prioritized with how fast they need to be plugged.
And they’ve got be money for about a thousand of the 20,000 in the state. So
if
Chris: you have a leaking gas well, and you’re mowing your lawn near it and, and it’s, you could create a major problem. It sounds like this is frightening stuff. It
Laura: is frightening. And there was no record of a lot of these. I mean, there could be more, I mean, if, if they’ve been around since Rockefeller and they weren’t keeping track of them, who knows exactly where they are, that’s the scary.
Chris: Okay, good story by Pete crafts. Check it out on cleveland.com. It’s today in Ohio, have the Cleveland Browns responded to the harsh criticism they received this week over the trade for quarterback Deshaun Watson who faces 22 lawsuits, accusing him of sexual assault and misconduct. [00:26:00] Layla, a group that represents women who are the victims of sexual abuse, blasted the Browns for this.
What did the Browns. So, I mean, it
Leila: does not appear that the Browns have responded yet. Right. Is, am I, am I
Chris: right in that? We know that’s the, that’s what we’re emphasizing here. They have not responded. Okay. I was going
Leila: to say I’ve just was, I was looking and looking I’d haven’t seen anything and they really should, because this situation is really.
Getting worse. They’ve they’ve been blasted by the Cleveland rape crisis center who on Tuesday said, they’ve now received over 1700 donations after news of the trade. And, and they’ve gotten calls to the crisis hotline line hotline, which have increased by more than 130% with hundreds of sexual assault survivors reaching out to the center in need of support because of the trade.
Other organizations have spoken out, including the Washington DC based national center on sexual exploitation, which released an open letter to the Haslams about the decision to trade for Watson. And in their letter, [00:27:00] they said, quote, at present it strains credulity to believe that the Cleveland Browns and the NFL as a whole.
Or in any way concerned about issues of sexual violence and exploitation. When we witnessed your franchise choose to promote an elevate, an alleged serial sexual exploiter, the national center, and a sexual exploitation also posed a series of questions to the Browns, including if the Browns had any system or policy to protect women against sexual abuse.
If they made it a condition of Watts. We meant to refrain from visiting massage parlors or hiring massage therapists. If the Browns will allow him to have one-on-one interactions with female employee and employees, and if they’ll suspend him, if any judgments are rendered against him in the, in the civil cases that are pending.
Crickets from the Browns we are waiting.
Chris: Yeah. I think the Browns and the hazards took a calculated risk that, yes, they’re going to get blasted for this decision, but they want the quarterback who can [00:28:00] win. What I, what I suspect is they grossly underestimated. The S the lasting power of this outrage. And they’re going to have to take some steps to correct this, this isn’t crisis, public relations.
This is a crisis. Uh, they’re going to lose fans. And th th that’s just, this is not going to go with. Unless they get proactive and they’ve been very quiet. It took them days before they issued a statement after they made the trade. They’re not saying anything now. And I think they’re just hoping if they keep their heads down, this will go away.
Do you think it will? No. No.
Leila: Well, but what do you think?
Lisa: Well, let me just drop a counterpoint in here. The key word here is. Yes, there are 22 cases. Now it’s moved to civil court, but he has not been indicted or convicted. So maybe the Browns are taking a calculated risk on that. I’m just trying to be devil’s advocate here.
I’m not condoning anything, but [00:29:00] you know, we often say that you’re innocent until you’re proven guilty. You know, we’ve said it in the press. We’ve said it, you know, everywhere. So why aren’t we giving this young black man the same benefit of the. Despite the 22 cases, I’m just throwing it out
Chris: there. Don’t you, you ha it’s a good point.
And maybe that’s what they’re doing. Um, I love when you play devil’s advocate, Lisa, you keep us honest. It’s great that you’re on this podcast. I,
Laura: I totally understand. Lisa’s point. I do think that they did take a calculated risk here, and I believe if he starts winning, there’s a lot of Clevelanders that are just going to, as long as nothing else happens.
Like if we don’t hear any more. Accusations. If nothing happens in Cleveland, I think there were a whole lot of Browns fans that are going to be like, yeah, yeah. We want a super bowl. Like, I, I just, I don’t think it’s going to stay in the forefront of people’s minds in August if we start winning.
Chris: Okay.
You’re listening to today in Ohio. It does it for a Thursday. Come [00:30:00] on back Friday for a wrap-up of the news. Thanks Lisa. Thanks Lela. Thanks Laura. Thank you for listening to this podcast.
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