CINCINNATI — Former Cincinnati City Councilman Jeff Pastor is asking a federal judge to send him to prison for one year and one day, in the hopes of avoiding a longer stint behind bars for his role in a public corruption scandal that rocked City Hall in 2020. He is set to be sentenced on Dec. 21.
“Mr. Pastor has elected to not ask the court to spare him from prison although that option is explicitly carved out for him in his plea agreement. Unlike former council members Tamaya Dennard and P.G. Sittenfeld, who committed the same crime but aggressively argued that a sentence of probation was sufficient to effectuate the goals of sentencing … Pastor acknowledges that his conduct warrants a term of imprisonment,” his attorney, assistant public defender Karen Savir, wrote in a sentencing memorandum filed Dec. 14.
Pastor, 39, pleaded guilty to one count of honest services wire fraud, in a deal that guarantees he will not spend more than two years in prison, and allows him to argue for probation.
Meanwhile, federal prosecutors are asking U.S. District Court Judge Matthew McFarland to sentence Pastor to two years in prison, which is the top of the plea agreement’s sentencing range.
“Pastor’s sentencing marks a grim reality of local corruption — the criminal convictions of one-third of Cincinnati City Council. Based on his own conduct, the need to deter public corruption, and the need to avoid unwarranted disparities, the United States requests a sentence of 24 months of imprisonment,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Singer wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
Voters elected Pastor as a newcomer Republican to City Council in November 2017. Six months after he took office, FBI agents say he began soliciting bribes in exchange for official action on two development projects.
Pastor flew on a private plane to Miami on a luxurious trip with undercover FBI agents posing as ‘investors’ in a development project, Convention Place Mall. Pastor explained how he would advance their project and asked for bribe payments, accepting $15,000 upon his return.
“But Pastor did not stop there. Drive by a desire to profit off his duties as an elected public servant, Pastor continued to solicit bribes from undercover agents and business people working on behalf of the government — on multiple occasions, over an eight-month period. His corruption was flagrant, aggressive, and relentless; and it was captured in recorded meetings and phone calls,” Singer wrote in the government’s sentencing memo.
Undercover FBI agents descended on City Hall in 2018 and 2019, posing as wealthy out-of-town developers. In 2020 they arrested three council members in separate corruption schemes: Pastor; Dennard who pleaded guilty to honest services wire fraud and served roughly a year of her 18-month sentence; and P.G. Sittenfeld who is set to report to prison on Jan. 2 to serve 16 months, after a jury convicted him of bribery and attempted extortion.
FBI agents arrested Pastor at his home in the early morning hours of Nov. 10, 2020. In addition to wire fraud, a federal grand jury charged Pastor with bribery, attempted extortion, money laundering and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He was accused of taking $55,000 in exchange for votes on two development deals.
In the plea deal, Pastor only admits to taking a $15,000 bribe in October 2018, but he continued to ask for more money afterward.
“Then, after flying back to Cincinnati from Miami, Pastor called (an undercover FBI agent) to “negotiate a monthly retainer,” Singer wrote.
Pastor also reached out to two cooperating witnesses to ask for bribes for their projects, demanding a $22,500 donation to fund Ummah Strength LLC, which his co-defendant, Tyran Marshall, used to sanitize the bribe money, Singer wrote.
Marshall pleaded guilty to money laundering on Dec. 5. No sentencing date has been set in his case.
“But these additional payments also did not stop Pastor from continuing to solicit bribes. In January 2019, Marshall reached out to (an undercover agent) on Pastor’s behalf … seeking ‘base salaries’ for Pastor’s and Marshall’s work ‘in and out of the city’ and ‘seed money’ for Ummah Development,” Singer wrote. “Pastor told (undercover agent) he wanted a $115,000 salary to help on city projects.”
At the same time, Pastor and Marshall were asking for additional money from cooperating witnesses, including $200,000 in salaries. “I would like to be compensated for my time,” complaining that the previous money he received, “doesn’t dignify the work that I am doing.” He later asked for a percentage of the “overall deal,” according to prosecutors.
“The more he received, the more he wanted. And when rebuffed, the more emboldened he became,” Singer wrote.
At the sentencing hearing, Pastor hopes the judge considers his childhood, “growing up poor in a home with an abusive, crack-addicted stepfather, in a neighborhood that he refers to as ‘the projects,’” Savir wrote.
“Because Mr. Pastor came to his job as a council member with unprocessed trauma from his formative years and because he was suffering significant financial distress at the time — compounded by his childhood experiences of living in poverty — he was vulnerable to the culture of corruption that we now know existed in certain political spheres in Ohio,” Savir wrote.
She described Pastor as a people-pleasing overachiever who worked on council to get resources for mental health support in impoverished areas, support criminal expungement clinics, organize a free concealed-carry firearm course at a Roselawn church for 180 women and support residents and police officers in the streets during the protests after the murder of George Floyd.
“Pastor is truly remorseful for his crime and has taken full responsibility for his wrongdoing, both publicly and privately, and he has spent the years since his arrest addressing the underlying issues that have plagued him since childhood to ensure he will never be that vulnerable, that tempted to make choices antithetical to his core values ever again,” Savir wrote.
Pastor also sought to distance himself from Sittenfeld, who has repeatedly tried to delay serving his prison sentence and still maintains his innocence.
“In contrast to Mr. Sittenfeld, Mr. Pastor has clearly accepted responsibility for his actions and acknowledges the wrongfulness and seriousness of his choices. And he is deeply remorseful, both for committing the crime for which he is charged and for the unintended result of that crime — the potential loss of public trust in City Hall and the resultant aftershocks,” Savir wrote.
Pastor has six children, ranging from a newborn to age 18. The Avondale home he owned with his wife Tara was sold earlier this year by sheriff’s sale to pay for back taxes.
