When state prosecutors first showed Matt Brakey, chairman of a powerful association of heavy-duty electric buyers in Ohio, a longstanding contract apparently in his organization’s name that investigators uncovered in a bribery probe, Brakey saw only one explanation.
His mentor and his lawyer, a man who in 2019 was named a senior state regulator by the governor until FBI agents raided his Columbus residence in October 2020, had been stealing from Brakey and his peers for years.
“It was a shock,” Brakey said in Summit County Court of Common Pleas on Friday, where he was called as a witness for the state. “When we found this document, there was no rational explanation for this other than him misappropriating funds from the organization.”…