Working for a national Democratic organization, Nesbitt & Parrinello worked to uncover and highlight instances of pay-to-play politics and self-dealing by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine during his 2022 re-election campaign.
Building off of the existing research into corruption in Ohio that grew out of the FirstEnergy nuclear bribery scandal, N&P delved deep into DeWine’s publicly reported finances, finding that in 2021 alone, he earned over $491K from his investments in companies doing business with the state of Ohio. N&P connected DeWine’s shareholder status with Intel with his decision to spearhead a $20 billion project to bring Intel to Ohio. Our research also revealed that at the same time as DeWine earned dividends from the Bank of New York Mellon, the Ohio Treasurer named the bank as the custodian of the $100.2 billion Ohio Public Employees Retirement System. N&P also revealed that numerous major DeWine donors earned state contracts after contributing to DeWine’s campaigns.
Although DeWine sought to distance himself from the FirstEnergy bribery scandal, N&P research detailed DeWine’s long-standing ties to the nuclear energy company and his continuing refusal to repeal the corrupt legislation protecting their interests.