Payday lending investigation sending lobbyist to jail

A lobbyist for Check-N-Go is the latest person convicted in a payday lending investigation at the Ohio Statehouse.

John Rabenold on Wednesday entered a guilty plea to two counts of filing false lobbying reports with the Joint Legislative Ethics Commission and Legislative Inspector General.

The case stemmed from an FBI investigation into payday lending legislative proposals. That probe eventually led to the separate convictions of Democrats Carlton Weddington of Columbus and Clayton Luckie of Dayton, two former lawmakers now serving time in state prison for felony convictions.

Jumping off of what they learned in the Weddington and Luckie cases, federal authorities found that Rabenold made expenditures on behalf of Check-N-Go that were not reported in 2010. Court documents say Rabenold didn’t report money spent to entertain state lawmakers at a Cincinnati Bengals game in December 2009 and at Columbus area restaurants in January 2010.

Rabenold, of Cincinnati, is slated to be sentenced May 1.

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