COLUMBUS, Ohio – A prominent, longtime Columbus lobbyist facing a charge in federal bribery following the passage of House Bill 6 has died.
According to a report from the sheriff in Collier County, Florida, Neil Clark was found dead Monday at 11:32 a.m. with a wound to his head near Naples, Florida. Sheriff’s spokeswoman Michelle Batten confirmed in an email Tuesday afternoon that Clark had died.
According to the report, the identification of information, but associated with Clark’s home in Florida, was inferred and said a gun was recovered as evidence of the scene. The Naples Daily News reports that a passing cyclist called police and said it did not appear to be a suspicious death. An investigator for the local medical investigator’s office said an investigation is underway.
Clark’s lawyer, William Ireland, said on Tuesday morning he was not available to speak. He told the USA Today Ohio network: “It’s a tragic loss for his friends and family. Neil remains innocent. We lost a good friend. ‘
Clark, 67, was arrested last year and charged with racketeering as part of a federal investigation into HB6, which owns two nuclear power plants in Ohio owned by a former FirstEnergy subsidiary. Clark was a close political ally of the then speaker, Larry Householder, who was also arrested and charged as part of the investigation.
Clark pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing. Prosecutors say he played a role in a $ 61 million bribery scheme funded by FirstEnergy and its subsidiary to pass HB6, which owns two Ohio power plants owned by a former FirstEnergy subsidiary. The money flowed through political groups and bought campaign ads, hired consultants and funded other means to help YOU gain his leadership position and to enforce HB6, according to the charges.
Clark, who grew up in Cleveland, began his career in Ohio politics as an assistant working for the Republican caucus of the Senate in Ohio. He became known as a lobbyist in the 1980s through State Street Consultants, a firm he co-founded with Paul Tipps, a former Ohio Democratic Party chairman. The two sued each other in 2009, and Clark later founded his own firm, Grant Street Consultants. Clark represented dozens of clients, including powerful lobbies representing alcoholic beverage distributors, nursing homes and cable companies, as well as money suppliers and the controversial Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, but his work dried up after his arrest in July last year.
Clark was working on the attempt to thwart an attempt to recall HB6. He was recorded talking about the campaign as part of what appeared to be an apparent FBI stabbing operation. Agents posing as developers behind a hotel in Cincinnati hired him in early 2019 to help a proposed state law legalize sports betting to benefit their project, he said in interviews last year. Eventually, they spoke to Clark about HB6, with quotes from their conversations that appeared in the 82-page affidavit that were not declared after the indictment was announced.
Clark said he was working on a book that tells everything, in which he sets out stories from his decades-long career as a lobbyist. He told a reporter last month that the book was close to publication.
David DeVillers, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio who initially filed the HB6 case, shared the news of Clark’s death and expressed his condolences Tuesday morning as he addressed the Ohio Consumer Council.
In a statement, the acting U.S. Attorney, U.S. District Vipal J. Patel, who is now overseeing the HB6 investigation, said he and others in his office ‘sympathize with Mr. Clark’s family and friends testify. ‘